Due to the ongoing Covid-19 induced lockdown in India, consumers have been confined at home. With restrictions on movement in place, the internet has become the main channel to work, socialize, entertain, and explore the world. As per a Comscore survey published on 4 June, the shift from offline to online activity in India has been significant. The time spent per visitor per month jumped during the month of March 2020, compared with the previous month – an 18% increase. It then went on to breach the 3,400 minutes per visitor per month mark during the month of April 2020, which was previously the highest level ever recorded since Comscore started measuring digital audiences in India. By the end of April 2020, consumers had spent an average of more than 3,600 minutes per visitor per month – or more than two hours per day per visitor.
Most of the time spent online was spent on a handful of digital categories, namely entertainment (28 average minutes per visitor per day), social networks (25 average minutes per visitor per day), services (23 average minutes per visitor per day), instant messengers (19 average minutes per visitor per day), games (12 average minutes per visitor per day), news (7 average minutes per visitor per day), and retail (4 average minutes per visitor per day), Comscore said.
As per the survey, games, social networking, and instant messengers sites were among the digital categories that increased the most: by 62%, 35%, and 33%, respectively. Comscore said that the increase is considerable given how deeply engrained into consumers’ lives these categories already were prior to the coronavirus pandemic.
However, Comscore said that it was too soon to tell if these behavioral changes are temporary or long-lasting. “Stay-at-home restrictions are gradually being lifted, and it is possible that some of these digital trends will revert to pre-pandemic patterns, but others may become permanent new habits,” it said.
