Online consumers in India are clearly ahead of the global average: Study

Survey was conducted among 22,500 consumers in 21 countries including Australia, Brazil, Canada, China and India

According to Accenture Research, online consumers in India are clearly ahead of the global average when it comes to adopting digital voice assistants. After conducting a survey among 22,500 consumers in 21 countries including Australia, Brazil, Canada, China and India, the researchers found that half of online consumers globally now use these devices but in India there is a 72 per cent adoption rate. "Standalone voice assistants or smart speakers are one of the fastest-adopted technologies in India and have a 97 per cent satisfaction rate among consumers," according to the report. Encouraging as the trends may be, trust is a potential impediment to greater adoption of smart speakers, with 41 per cent of consumers globally citing privacy concerns and 40 per cent citing security concerns with the technology. "Forty-six percent of consumers globally believe they don't have control of their data with voice assistants and 58 percent are more likely to re-evaluate their trust in this service by continually checking how their information is being used," the report added.

Popular destinations

According to a recent report from job search engine, Indeed, Indian job seekers are increasingly looking for Canada and UK for jobs needing skilled professionals. The findings are based on the searches made by job-seekers across the world. Indeed also said that there has been a substantial fall in the share of searches for jobs in the United States. “Presumably owing to its immigration policies, a major portion of international job seeker interest has been picked up by Canada and the UK." The searches are mainly for high paying roles in technology, research and finance. Since 2015, job seekers based in other countries have typically accounted for between 8 and 10 per cent of the overall job applications for tech jobs in the UK. It was recorded that the maximum number of people looking for jobs in the UK were from India, the US and France, followed by Poland and Ireland.