‘Bharat’ users at par with ‘India’ users when it comes to participating in online financial activities: Report 

‘Bharat’ users are at par with ‘India’ users when it comes to participating in online financial activities, according to a report released by ShareChat titled ‘Bharat - The Neo India’ in association with Group M.

The report analyses the social media behavior, content preferences, spending choices of Bharat and India users. Users that prefer the Indic language on social media have been classified as Bharat users and India users as the ones that prefer using English, across all the regions of India. 

Bharat users are spread across the country with nearly 40 per cent present in metros and 53 per cent in non-metros. The findings in the report are based on a primary survey by YouGov, conducted among 3,432 social media users across 17 Indian states and with inputs from Kantar on Indic language urban active internet users.

According to the survey, Bharat users are as affluent and digitally savvy as India users.

Key trends

In terms of choice of a mode of online payment, Bharat users are adept at using UPI for online transactions and have a lead over India users in terms of net-banking and debit cards transactions online. 

Among Bharat users, UPI is used by 56 per cent of users, while 49 per cent use mobile wallets multiple times a week. “Breaking away from traditional means, Bharat users are investing in stocks, mutual funds, e-gold and even cryptocurrency,” the report said.

According to the report, one in five Bharat users invests in cryptocurrency.

Further, Bharat users are also increasingly shopping online with 46 per cent buying gadgets online in 2021, followed by other categories like travel bookings, food, clothing and accessories, beauty and skincare are also popular.

They are also more engaged on social media as compared to India users. 29 per cent of Bharat users post content daily at least once as compared to 22 per cent of India users. 

Social media has also gained a preference for staying updated as 39 per cent of Bharat use it as their primary source of news consumption. 

“Social media also emerged as one of the primary influences for making buying decisions for Bharat users,” the report further added.

About 21 per cent of Bharat posts content 4-5 times a week compared to 17 per cent of India. Similar to India users, the majority of Bharat users prefer streaming free videos over watching TV, the report further said. Half of Bharat users stream free video content daily online and around 47 per cent watch TV. 

There is also a growing preference among Bharat users for paid online content with 27 per cent already using paid video streaming services daily. 37 per cent of Bharat users are listening to music, 36 per cent are shopping, and 24 per cent are ordering food online.

In certain categories, Bharat users in specific regions drive higher engagement. For instance, in South, Bharat users drive higher engagement in gaming (39 per cent), food & drinks (32 per cent) and travel (22 per cent). Similar is true for travel (22 per cent) in the West and health and fitness (29 per cent) in the North.

In terms of voice search, Bharat users are leading with 26 per cent, as compared to 15 per cent of Indian users. 

 Ajit Varghese, Chief Commercial Officer of ShareChat, said, “Bharat users are taking social media by storm. It is interesting to note that the Language first users are at par with English language first users when it comes to digital presence, use of online transaction methods, and shopping habits.”

“Bharat users also outrank when it comes to consuming news, food and beverages, health and fitness, and travel related categories online,” said Varghese, adding that similar trends have been observed in ShareChat. 

Prasanth Kumar, CEO – GroupM South Asia said, “From the media planning aspect, Bharat is unique in many ways. This is mostly because all the cities that make Bharat are Indic language-heavy, fragmented and display their own sets of consumer behaviour traits.”

“This diversity in our country brings in its own challenges and opportunities. Brands and media planners looking to reach target audiences across the country should focus on a customised approach for this segment,” said Kumar.

According to Deepa Bhatia, General Manager – India, YouGov, “As internet continues to penetrate beyond the metropolitan and tier 1 cities, we see millions of regional language users coming online.”

“Interestingly, the results of this survey indicate that these users are not just content consumers on social media, but evidently more engaged than that, with a higher proportion of them indicating that they post/upload pictures and stories on social media. A vast majority of them have made online purchases for various categories, ranging from groceries to electronics. And although adoption of mobile wallets is somewhat lagging, they seem otherwise comfortable with online financial transactions, and use UPI and Mobile Banking as much as the digital natives use English as the preferred language online. On the whole, they might be demographically different, but their behaviour, social media adoption and usage currently looks very much aligned with the digital natives who have been online for longer,” added Bhatia.

As per Kantar, there are more than 341 million overall urban active internet users and 167 million urban active Indic internet users. 

As suggested by the study, the urban active Indic internet users over-indexed on NCCS A (New Consumer Classification System) and higher education compared to overall urban active internet users. 33 per cent of the urban active Indic internet users are from NCCS A as compared to 30 per cent among overall urban active internet users. 39 per cent of urban active Indic internet users consists of graduates/postgraduates as compared to 35 per cent among overall urban active internet users.

Biswapriya Bhattacharjee, Director- B2B & Technology, Insights Division, Kantar said, “The Bharat users represent an important market constituent- one which is affluent, adequately urban, socially conscientious, well-educated and engaged across all media platforms.”

“They are Indic language preferers as much by choice as by compulsion. This is a valuable segment for most marketers and as internet penetration increases further in the lower-tier cities, this segment will also become a sizeable segment to target. However, it is important for the marketers to curate their communication for this audience to appeal to their value systems and thereby connect with them in a manner that will resonate with them while using a language that will bring in a personal touch,” Bhattacharjee said.