Amidst the fear of fourth wave, Mumbai & Delhi witness surge in Covid-related online searches for health services

–          Demand for pharmacies contribute to 52% of the total searches, vaccination centres 30%

–          Delhi leads searches for pharmacies, Mumbai for vaccination centres

Mumbai, May 4, 2022 (GNI): With COVID cases rising exponentially across the country amidst the fear of fourth wave looming large, Mumbai and Delhi are witnessing a sudden surge in leading COVID-related searches for pharmacies, vaccination centres, ambulance service, and COVID test centres, reports the latest Just Dial Consumer Insights.

Searches for pharmacies dominated all COVID-related searches contributing almost 52% and along with vaccination centres (30%), ambulance (9.25%), COVID Tests (4.4%), and oxygen cylinders (2.5%) made up the top-5 most searched categories on Just Dial. The top-10 cities across the country that generated maximum searches were Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, and Chandigarh.

Delhi topped the searches for pharmacies followed by Mumbai and Bengaluru among Tier-I cities. In fact, Delhi and Mumbai contributed to 51% of the searches that were being generated from Tier-I cities. Month-on-Month (April vs. March) searches in Bengaluru saw a huge jump of 40%, Pune 24%, and Delhi 14%.

Mumbaikars made a beeline for vaccination centres followed by Delhi and Hyderabad. Bengaluru saw the maximum rise (month-on-month) in demand for vaccination centres at 14% and Pune at 11%.

Commenting on the trend, Mr. Prasun Kumar, CMO, Just Dial, said: “As COVID cases have started increasing again in some parts of the country, we are witnessing increase in search trends related to health services on Just Dial. Pharmacies have been dominating most of the online searches and Justdial has aggregated neighbourhood pharmacies on the platform with credible information so that they are just a call away for our users. Besides pharmacies, over the last two years we have also aggregated a whole lot of emergency health service providers across India’s Tier-1 and Tier-II cities to encourage overall digital adoption.”

Demand for ambulances remained at par in Delhi and Mumbai followed by Pune while Chennai topped the list for COVID test centres ahead of Mumbai and Delhi. Vis-à-vis the third wave, searches for oxygen cylinders remained significantly low with Delhi and Mumbai generating maximum demand followed by Hyderabad.

Tier-II cities like Chandigarh, Jaipur, Nagpur, Indore, and Patna generated maximum searches for COVID-related health services as demand remained stable. Chandigarh, Lucknow, and Jaipur generated maximum searches for pharmacies among Tier-II cities. Searches in Chandigarh grew by 20% and Jaipur saw a 4% growth. 

Nagpur topped the demand for vaccination centres with Indore and Jaipur in the second and the third place respectively.  Demand for ambulances in Chandigarh shot-up by 36% in April vis-à-vis March and topped the demand across Tier-II cities ahead of Lucknow and Jaipur.  

Jaipur and Coimbatore saw maximum demand for COVID test centres followed by Chandigarh while maximum demand for oxygen cylinders was from Lucknow, Jaipur, and Gorakhpur, stated in the press release.

About Just Dial Limited provides local search related services to users in India through multiple platforms such as Desktop/PC website (https://www.justdial.com), mobile site (https://t.justdial.com), mobile apps (Android & iOS), over the telephone (Voice, pan India number 88888-88888) and text (SMS). Justdial’s latest version of JD App, is an All-in-One App, replete with features like Map-aided Search, Live TV, Videos, Stock quotes, etc. to make the life of the consumer infinitely smoother & more engaging.

The Company has recently launched its B2B marketplace platform, JD Mart. JD Mart platform, available at https://www.jdmart.com and via apps on Play Store and App Store, is aimed at enabling millions of India’s manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, retailers to become internet-ready in post-COVID era, get new customers and sell their products online. The platform offers digital product catalogues to businesses and aims at digitalising India’s businesses, especially MSMEs, across categories. Buyers can discover quality vendors offering a wide selection of products to choose from, spread across millions of categories to suit all B2B needs.

Justdial has also initiated transaction-oriented services for its users. These services aim at making several day-to-day tasks conveniently actionable and accessible to users from one App. With this step, Justdial is transitioning from being purely a provider of local search and related information to being a direct/ indirect enabler of such transactions. Justdial has also recently launched an end-to-end business management solution for SMEs, through which it intends to transition thousands of SMEs to efficiently run business online and have their adequate online presence via their own website, mobile site. Apart from this, Justdial has also launched JD Pay, a unique solution for quick digital payments for its users and vendors.ends GNI SG