A recent search trend report by e-commerce giant, Alibaba.com, revealed that Internet searches for cricket related products went up by 130 percent in February 2011 compared to February 2010. The reason for such a sharp increase in searches is primarily due to the Cricket World Cup Tournament that started in February 2011. 34 percent of the growth in searches was noted in January 2011, the month prior to the start of the Cricket World Cup.
Following the trend of cricket searches, the interest levels of SMEs (small and medium enterprises) producing and marketing cricket related products have also increased. Indian SMEs received 49.60% of their business from “cricket playing” countries like the United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, West Indies, New Zealand and Pakistan. The surprising fact was that around 12% of the global enquiries came from non-cricket playing countries such as U.S, China and Singapore. The rise in sales in non cricket playing nations is credited to the International Cricket Council (ICC)’s active promotion of the sport.
Not only the World Cup, past cricket tournaments had also shown an increase in the online searches. Global buyer searches on Alibaba.com for cricket products from India grew by 46.1 percent in August, 2010, a month before Indian franchises participated in the T20 Champions League.
Sandeep Deshpande, Alibaba.com’s India country manager said, “Searches from global buyers for cricket products manufactured by Indian SMEs has increased significantly during major international cricket tournaments. With cricket gaining global acceptance, the potential is much larger than ever before.”
Whether it’s RockeTalk– the top mobile social network in India or YouTube– the top video sharing website in India, businesses are exploring ways and means to ride the cricket wave.
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