According to the world’s leading Web traffic measurement service Alexa, only 5 of the of the Top Twenty Websites in the Indian Market are indigenous Indian products – the rest are all products of global media giants like Google, Microsoft, ESPN and Yahoo. On the Indian front, the usual suspects Rediff (#5), Naukri.com (#12), IndiaTimes (#14) and Sify.com (#20) rule and one private site DebonairBlog.com (a porn site - #19) lead the way.That makes 4 big Indian brands and 1 porn site!
Further along we have Raaga.com at 24, Bharatstudent.com at 30, SantaBanta.com at 33 and Indian Railways at 37. Good to see some independent entrepreneurs breaking the top 40 ceiling – well done! But there should be many more in the top 40.
So what does this tell us. Well, while it may appear that in the future, the Web in India might be brought to us exclusively by multinationals and large Indian publishing companies, the truth is that what we see before us is a huge opportunity.
The Indian Web market is about to cross over the 60 million user mark this year (25 million active users) and if all predictions prove true, we should have over 100 million active users by 2010 (Nielsen Net Ratings). On the other side broadband home access and the rapid spread of credit and debit cards will help create a vibrant ecommerce market well in excess of the current $1 billion (eStatsIndia.com). This means that the Indian market is ready for a wide range of new service, utility, shopping, leisure and entertainment sites that cater to this upcoming boom. These are heady days for Indian Web Publishers. What’s stopping you?
…Read my next post on branding to help you map out your conquest of the Indian Web market.