What We Learned from CES 2011

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

(Cross-posted on Google Retail Blog)

Well, it’s been just over a week since we wrapped up another exciting CES with some very innovative new product displays. From the world’s thinnest tablet (and a concept tablet...and a waterproof tablet!), to a range of smart tvs, to a surge in ultrabook designs, and of course who could leave out the sleek new smartphones, this year’s show had many talked about products.

But what will have consumers buzzing the remainder of the year, as many of these products gear up for their official releases? While it’s tough to predict that, we did want to take a quick look at what happened after CES last year, to glean insights into some trends we can look for this year.

Insight #1: CES week search volume could be a good indicator of launch week popularity

Insight #2: CES 2012’s Top 5 Products had 50% more Google Searches than CES 2011’s Top 5
ASUS Transformer Prime looks like a potential big winner based on Google search volume, and its volume was even greater than two of last year’s hottest products, the HTC Thunderbolt and Motorola Atrix.

Insight #3: Samsung made a much bigger splash this year with 3 of top 5 mobile searches, while in 2011, HTC had 2 of the top 5 products. Top products are determined based on query volume.

Insight #4: Among top launches, the Nokia Lumia was the most frequent 2012 product searched in a single session on Google.com and heavily searched on YouTube. The ASUS Eee Pad and Transformer Prime were cross-researched on Google.com most often with the Lumia. User activity on Youtube showed top term Nokia Lumia with 1.3 million video views for the Nokia LumiaTV ad.The ASUS Eee Pad had ~400K video views for review and there were about ~540K views for “Ipads2 vs ASUS”.Consumers are searching primarily for products and product reviews on Google.com & YouTube to learn more about new launches during CES.

Nina Thatcher and Amy Liu, The Google Tech Team