Chennai:  Sulekha, India’s largest local services fulfilment platform, unveiled a study indicating the key trends and changing dynamics of the Local Services industry in India through 2016. This report is an analysis of the searches that have been done on the Sulekha platform from January to December 2016 across 25 cities in India.

Among the 500+ Local Services categories listed on Sulekha, some of the service categories that have seen significant growth online include: Party Planning (43%); Coaching and Education (42%); Lessons and Tuitions (39%); and Fitness and Wellness (38%). Birthday parties, wedding planning and DJ services top the list of popular party services. Wedding planning has seen maximum growth of 130% in 2016.

Delhi and Bangalore spend 1.5 times more than Hyderabad and Chennai for birthday parties. The category of Coaching and Education has grown 42% over 2015. Spoken English, banking tuitions and overseas education have been the three most popular services in the Coaching and Education category in 2016.

Searches for spoken English classes have grown 46% in Tier 2 cities led by Chandigarh, Nagpur, Surat, Madurai, Coimbatore, Jaipur and Vijayawada. Users are mostly between the ages of 17 to 25 and are seeking jobs and higher education opportunities by enrolling for Spoken English classes.

Engineering, MBA and Medicine continue to be the top 3 choices, similar to 2015. Journalism has become a new choice amongst the top 5 options for overseas education. The Lessons and Tutorials category has seen a surge of 39% from 2015. Dance, instrumental and vocal music classes feature amongst the top choices. 85% of traffic in this category comprises of users who are parents of young kids aged between 5 years to 15 years.

Dance Classes make up for nearly 30% of all enquiries in the Lessons and Tuitions category. Western dance and Salsa classes (searches) are growing 3.4 times faster than Bharatanatyam, Kathak and Bhangra classes. Tabla and Mridangam classes have dropped 20-25% in searches.

The Fitness and Wellness category has grown 38% from 2015. Gyms and weight loss, yoga and meditation, and massage therapy have been the most popular services in 2016. Searches increase 3 times in December over other months, as people get health conscious around New Year time.

Home Yoga Instructors (searches) have increased 5 times more than yoga centers – showing an increasing inclination of users to get yoga and meditation at home. At-home yoga is costlier than yoga centers, however users in Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai are increasingly choosing this option.

Commenting on the report, Satya Prabhakar, Founder and CEO, Sulekha said, “The report highlights the growing trend and acceptance among people to look for professional local services online. This report also indicates how service providers across India are realising the power of the Internet to scale their businesses. It has been a great year for Sulekha, we are investing continuously in making Sulekha a platform not only for discovery of the best service experts across a wide array of categories, but also acquiring knowledge to develop the tools that will help our users choose the best experts on our platform.”