Israelis love gadgets on Google

September 11, 2009 - 4:14 PM by David · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Blogging, Business, General, Israeliness, Pop Culture, Technology

google-israel-home Ever wonder what Israelis look for on Google? If you thought it was photos of Bar Refaeli, than you’re only partially right.

According to Google Israel Ltd., Israelis are actually nerds – mostly interested in gadgets. The business site Globes reported Google’s assessment of Israeli behavior on the search engine, which found that we’re particularly interested in the…. global cellular market???

The anticipated arrival of the new iPhone in Israel and the expansion of cellular companies into the music content field with Pelephone’s Musix, Cellcom Israel Ltd. Cellcom Media and Partner Communications Co. Ltd. Orange Time have resulted in a high rate of search for these services, Google Israel media and telecom sector head Nir Korchak told the site.

“Without doubt, the biggest new buzz over the last six months was the much talked-about iPhone. The late launch did not curb the appetite of Israelis for the coveted handset and may even have strengthened it. Searches for it were astronomical and broke all records for handset searches.”

Korchak added, “We can draw conclusions from this about Israeli consumers. He loves gadgets and is quick to take up new technologies, and this trend is expressed in the largest number of searches even before the launch. In other words, the enthusiastic Israeli public sees itself as part of the global village, and does not wait for the local launch to get information about something which is already being sold abroad.”

He said, “The Israeli public uses the search engine at every stage in the purchasing process: from initial interest through searches like ‘critique of Nokia N97 through market surveys, ‘iPhone price comparisons’ and onto the order stage ‘buy mobile phone.’”

According to the study, Israelis also use the search terms ‘loans’ and ‘financing’ alot, but not in ways that characterize an economic crisis – 55% of Israelis looked for a loan to finance a vacation, 25% to renovate their home and only 20% in order to repay debts.

And demonstrating that Israelis aren’t just business minded, there have been two peaks in the last six months for searches for swine flu in both English and Hebrew – the first was after the initial outbreak in Mexico and the second was after the outbreak of the virus in Israel.

Of course, what the survey didn’t indicate was that according my own informal polling, after searching for all of the above topics, 93% of Israeli males also typed in ‘Bar Refaeli photos.’

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