Is India in recession? The newspapers seem to have been featuring many articles on the impending economic slowdown. Almost everyday, the news & business channels have been reporting on the dropping automobile sales and the constant liquidity crisis in the NBFCs.
We are not economists to tell whether or not these numbers indicate an incoming recession. But, we are marketers and we can sense the sentiment of the market. We explored Google Trends to compare the sentiments of the country over the past decade, and here’s what we found.
Is India in recession?
Back in 2008, when many of the major world economies entered a recession the fear of the recession impacting India also ran very high. The interest in the search term “recession in India” was very high and peaked to 100 points (The highest possible point score) in May 2009. However right now in August 2019, the interest on this term was only at 18 points.
Our conclusion is that the worry of recession is currently low and is not bothering the Indian consumers.
Are car loans being searched more or less?
The search interest for “car loans” had peaked to 100 points in June 2010 but since then has never touched that peak again. Ironically, the search interest around this term was at just 50 points, on average, for the year 2017, when the Indian automobile industry delivered a record sale of 4.01 million units. In 2019, the search interest for car loans was at 50 points in August and had already hit 57 points in just 7 days of September 2019, thus showing a sharp increase.
Our conclusion is that more people are searching more for car loans in 2019 than they did in 2017. Surely, the auto industry must focus on converting these searches into sales.
In effect, these two Google Trends data suggest that though there is a lot of talk around recession, and the looming automobile industry crisis, the mood of the consumers seems to be away from these worries.
What does this mean for your brand?
Possibly, the trend data of the two terms might not apply to your brand. But, using Google Trend data is definitely a good idea. Since Google Trends offers a great insight on the market sentiments over the years, it can be very effectively used to understand the seasonal variations, consumer behaviour and buying patterns.
If you are interested in knowing the trends around your brand, product & category, reply to this email with the date & time and we’ll be happy to meet you.
