How interest in sports, real-life experiences, and entertainment defined India’s Year in Search 2022
In 2022, India recorded all-time high search moments in cricket and football, celebrated diversity in film and sport, rediscovered fun experiences in the outside world, while also asking questions about news events, emerging concepts, and helpful government schemes. In fact, we leaned into our love for sport and entertainment like never before with our ambitious films, mesmerizing songs, and engaging matches shaping global trends this year. While we came together to celebrate glorious occasions, we also sadly bid farewell to many legendary personalities.
If 2021 saw us taking our first guarded steps into a post-pandemic era, 2022 marked the year we bounced back stronger in many ways. In this journey, Search helped people find a world of information – be it questions on everyday interests, new passions, or more intricate topics. As the year comes to a close, it’s time to look back at the year’s standout moments that had people searching, wondering, and celebrating across a broad range of topics – with the Year in Search 2022 recap in India.
Our passion for sport reached new heights this year in Search. While the Indian Premier League led the pack of trending searches in India, queries for the T20 World Cup and Asia Cup reached an all-time high. Not just on home turf, India also dominated sports trends worldwide, securing all top 5 slots in our global trending matches list. Football saw similar excitement, with searches for the ongoing FIFA World Cup as well peaking this year and making it to the top trending searches, along with the Indian Super League.
On the sporting events list, women's sports moments also shone brightly – besides marking many firsts at the Commonwealth Games, including the historic win by the Indian women's lawn bowls team that emerged as one of the top queries around this moment – the Women's Cricket World Cup marked its debut on the top trending Searches for sporting events. Kabaddi and Tennis rounded up the trending sports events list with Pro Kabaddi League, Australian Open, and Wimbledon.
Our ‘Near me’ queries showed people stepping out to explore many of their interests across entertainment, health, wellness, and more. Terms such as “Swimming pool near me”, “Water park near me”, “Malls near me” featured in the list. People also searched for Covid-19 and Polio vaccinations and किराये के मकान near them.
This included many people returning to the cinemas to experience some movie magic. Unlike last year, theatrical releases took a lead in 2022 with popular theatrical releases across languages, including many pan-India films, dominating the list. Hindi film Brahmastra: Part One – Shiva and Kannada film KGF: Chapter 2 secured top spots in our overall and movie trending searches lists, and also made it to the top global trending movie searches. Trending movies in India also included Hindi films The Kashmir Files, Laal Singh Chaddha, and Drishyam 2, Telugu films RRR and Pushpa: The Rise, Tamil film Vikram, Kannada film Kantara, with the lone English film in the list being Thor: Love and Thunder.
Our songs got people humming across the world, with Chaand Baaliyan and Srivalli making it to the top songs people hummed to search globally.
People also searched for helpful government programs. e-SHRAM card - a government scheme to support unorganized workers with social security benefits - made it to our trending searches and ‘how to’ queries list. Agneepath scheme - a newly launched government scheme to recruit youth in the Indian army – led our ‘what is’ search trends. Other ‘what is’ queries on Search displayed people's interests in a diverse range of topics across news (NATO, PFI, Article 370), finance (NFT), technology (metaverse), and health (myositis).
Our ‘how to’ trending queries also showed people actively searching for important information around vaccinations, government documents, income tax filing, pregnancy, and more. Guessing five-letter words every day interested people as well, with people keen to know how to play “wordle”.
We showed interest in a diverse range of global and local personalities that were in the news including politicians Nupur Sharma, Droupadi Murmu, Rishi Sunak, entertainment personalities Sushmita Sen, Abdu Rozik, and Amber Heard, and sports star Pravin Tambe to name a few.
News events were headlined by the saddened losses of renowned personalities across the world, including our very own nightingale Lata Mangeshkar, cricketer Shane Warne, Queen Elizabeth, and artists Sidhu Moose Wala, KK, and Bapppi Lahiri. While people showed keen interest in developments on the Russia-Ukraine war and UP elections closer to home, we also celebrated a special moment with India’s 75th year of Independence that found a spot in this category with ‘Har Ghar Tiranga’.
‘Recipe’ queries presented a multi-cuisine array of delicious dishes. Indian flavours remained a favourite with dishes such as ‘Paneer Pasanda’, ‘Malai Kofta’, and ‘Paneer Burji’. Along with fiery foods, recipes for ‘Modak’ and ‘Anarse’, satiated the sweet toothed. Many also searched for comfort favourites like ‘Chicken soup’, ‘Pancake’, ‘Margherita Pizza’, while also showing interest in popular drinks ‘Pornstar Martini’ and ‘Sex on the beach’.
Find out more about what India was searching for at our Year in Search website.
