India's Economic Run

HONG KONG - With Western consumers tightening their belts, companies still in budget-cutting mode and inflation raging, the Indian economy was bound to slow from its spectacular pace of recent times.

New Delhi's Central Statistical Office revealed Friday that India's economic growth slowed to 7.9% annually in the April-June quarter, down from 9.2% in the second quarter last year and easing off from the previous quarter's 8.8%. This is the first time India has recorded GDP growth lower than 8% in nine quarters, since December 2004.

A downturn in the manufacturing sector braked the Indian economy. According to the government figures published Friday, manufacturing growth was hit the hardest, dropping to 5.6%, from 10.9% last year.

Besides manufacturers, Indian information technology companies, whose success in recent years has been grounded on India's large population of low-wage but well-educated, English-speaking technicians, are also under threat as international banks, brokerages and other firms all started to cut their IT budgets amid the global credit crunch. (See “Slowdown Affects Indian’s IT Sector.”)

The decline of Indian economic growth is also a natural outcome of the Indian government’s monetary tightening measures to curb inflation. "These are numbers that shouldn't surprise," said Saumitra Chaudhury, a member of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council and chief economist at the credit rating agency ICRA, a Moody's affiliate.

After a few months of tightening, India’s inflation, which hit a 13-year high in June, appears to have stabilized. On Thursday, the government reported that the wholesale price index, the nation's benchmark inflation indicator, fell to 12.4% for the week ending Aug. 16, from 12.6% the previous week.

Chaudhury expected the central bank to maintain interest rates when it next meets in October.

Two days before the GDP announcement, Moody's projected that India's economic growth would decelerate to 7.9% in the current fiscal year, from 9% in 2007-08 amid slowing credit growth and higher interest rates.

-- The Associated Press contributed to this article.

Internet trends: marketing research & predictions

India’s Independence day: Short Review of Online India
August 15th, 2008 by Taly Weiss
Filed under internet behavior, consumer behavior, mobile web, trends spotting behavior

Celebrating Independence Day in India, TrendsSpotting releases a short review on Online India statistics:

Internet use

According to ComScore: 28 million people in India age 15 and older accessed the Internet from home and work locations in May 2008.
Internet users in India represent approximately only 3% of the population (potential for continued strong growth).

The average Indian Internet user visited the Internet 25 times during the month and was online for 28 minutes per visit.
• Those between the ages of 15-24 were the heaviest Internet users among all age segments, spending nearly 12 hours online per month on average.
• Some of the fastest growing Web site categories during the past year included Maps (up 64 percent), Sports (up 60 percent), Entertainment - Movies (up 55 percent), and Finance – News/Research (up 52 percent).

Top Websites in India:
Top players are showing a relative growth from year 2007.
Google Sites ranked as the top property in India: nearly 20 million visitors in May, a 35% increase versus year ago and the largest growth among all other properties. That’s too include: Google Search (up 38% to 17.1 million visitors), social networking site Orkut (up 39% to 9.3 million visitors), blog platform Blogger.com (up 102% to 7.3 million visitors), and video site YouTube (up 131% to 6.3 million visitors).
Yahoo! Sites ran second with 18.7 million visitors (up 28%), followed by Microsoft Sites with 12 million (up 11%). Indian portal Rediff.com ranked as the top local property with 9.2 million visitor (up 19%), followed by government site NIC.in with nearly 6 million visitors (up 5%).B2b portal also find its viewers( up 3.5% ) likewise made-from-india.com, rusbiz.com since indian B2b trade has also increased over the years.