HYDERABAD: More and more Indian women are going online to buy goods ranging from baby care items to beauty products, according to a new analysis by Google India.

Google supplemented its own internal search and usage statistics for the period between April 2012 and March, 2013, with industry reports and primary research among 1,000 online female shoppers.

Overall, there were some 60m female internet users in India, or 40% of the total, and most of these were under 35 (75%) and in the top socio-economic groups (72%).

Around 24m accessed the internet daily for an average of around 50 minutes, with one in four using a mobile to do so.

In addition, 5m had shopped online, buying apparel and accessories, food and beverages, hair care, skin care and baby care products.

The last category was one of the most searched for, with 64% of women looking for baby care, while just 30% searched hair care, a finding that Google put down to the quality of websites and the ecosystem that has been built

Rajan Anandan, managing director at Google India, suggested that the data could guide content creation by advertisers.

"We have been partnering closely with media agencies and these statistics are bound to help," he told the Business Standard.

Overall, than 50% of women online were seen to be influenced by digital information, and Anandan got specific on one category. "Remember that 72 per cent of the audience get influenced through the digital medium on skin care, making it worthwhile to create beauty content for online consumption," he said.

Another finding was that many women were searching on 'how to' topics, such as how to wear a sari or how to apply eyeliner, and some 30% of women viewed 'how to' videos.

The study also noted that 40% of YouTube users in India were women who were watching music videos, TV shows and film content, beauty and fashion videos. As well as these popular choices, education, health and fitness, home care and cooking also featured in the top 10 video content categories.

Data sourced from Business Standard, Rediff; additional content by Warc staff