Psychographic segmentation of Indian urban consumers

Since 1991, India is emerging as a key destination for marketers from across the globe. However, little work of relevance has been undertaken to understand the Indian Consumers. It is believed that the Indian metropolitan consumers are fairly homogeneous in nature. In this paper, we report the results of a survey conducted amongst 560 respondents in the five metropolises. The objective was to segment the metropolitan consumers on behavioral aspects and to understand their consumption pattern. The study, designed on the basis of VALS, uses cluster analysis to segment the Indian metropolitan consumers into six behavioral categories, namely Well Settled, Strugglers, Enjoyers, Conservatives, Self Concerned and Realist. The segments have been profiled in terms of their product ownership, Activities and Interests, Financial Investment avenues and Media habits. Implications for marketing and government policy have been discussed.