MUMBAI: India’s consumers are the region’s most trigger-happy shoppers, and no amount of measured Singaporean caution or Australian pragmatism comes close. That is the blunt verdict of Criteo’s Spark of Discovery 2026 report, released on Tuesday, which pits the shopping instincts of Indian, Australian and Singaporean consumers against each other and finds India in a league of its own.
The numbers are striking. Three-quarters of Indian consumers, 75 per cent, say joy is important when shopping online. Some 66 per cent say attractive design triggers impulse purchases, against 48 per cent in Australia and 59 per cent in Singapore. And 45 per cent of Indian shoppers say novelty or limited-edition products push them into unplanned buying, well ahead of Australia’s 28 per cent and Singapore’s 33 per cent.
This is not a market that shops from habit. India shops from feeling.
ADS THAT ACTUALLY LAND
The receptiveness extends to advertising. Some 65 per cent of Indian consumers say seeing an ad makes them feel positively toward a brand, compared with 46 per cent in Australia and a mere 40 per cent in Singapore. Two-thirds of Indian shoppers say receiving a well-timed, relevant ad genuinely excites them. In most markets, that sort of claim would invite scepticism. In India, the data backs it up.
Trust infrastructure matters, too. Customer reviews, responsive support and useful product information all drive brand excitement and deeper connection among Indian shoppers, features that brands ignore at their peril in a market where word-of-mouth, digital or otherwise, travels fast.
THE INFLUENCER GAP, AND WHY INDIA HAS CLOSED IT
Perhaps the report’s sharpest finding concerns influencer marketing. In Australia and Singapore, brands systematically overestimate how much influencer content moves consumers. The perception gap is wide and commercially costly. In India, it has all but vanished.
Some 54 per cent of Indian consumers say influencer content excites them. Meanwhile, 55 per cent of Indian brands believe influencers drive new users. That near-perfect alignment, one percentage point apart, signals what the report calls a “more mature and commercially effective influencer ecosystem.” In a region where brand optimism about influencers routinely outruns consumer reality, India’s calibration stands out.
BRAND CONFIDENCE: INDIA LEADS, SINGAPORE HEDGES
On the brand side, conviction in discovery-led marketing is highest in India, where 95 per cent of brands say discovery contributes to brand growth, against 84 per cent in Australia. Singapore nominally matches India’s headline effectiveness figure, with 99 per cent of brands in both markets reporting that discovery strategies work, but only 36 per cent of Singaporean brands strongly agree with the claim, suggesting a more guarded enthusiasm.
The confidence gap is equally stark on return on investment. Some 86 per cent of Indian brands say they are confident in ROI delivery from discovery-led approaches. In Australia the figure drops to 75 per cent. In Singapore, a mere 19 per cent report being very confident, a number that speaks less to failure than to a market still working out what it believes.
AI AND THE RISE OF ALGORITHMIC SERENDIPITY
Indian brands are not resting on the emotional responsiveness of their consumers. The report finds 93 per cent of Indian brands plan to use artificial intelligence to improve user experience, while 86 per cent intend to use AI to remove guesswork from their marketing strategies. The language of experimentation is giving way to the language of infrastructure.
The shift reflects what Criteo describes as a move from “perfect personalisation” to “algorithmic serendipity”, using AI to surface products consumers had not thought to search for but are primed to buy. It is a subtle but commercially significant distinction: the difference between serving demand and creating it.
Medhavi Singh, country head, India, Criteo, says: “India’s commerce ecosystem stands out as one of the most dynamic and signal-rich environments. The findings from The Spark of Discovery 2026 report position India as a benchmark market for discovery-led commerce, demonstrating how design, influencer credibility, advertising relevance, and AI-enabled intelligence come together to create meaningful consumer engagement. Indian consumers are highly responsive to experiences that are relevant, context-driven, and rooted in actual shopping behaviour, enabling brands to translate discovery into measurable business outcomes.”
Singh adds that as AI becomes more deeply embedded in commerce strategies, “the opportunity lies in moving beyond fragmented touchpoints to a more unified, intelligence-led approach, where creativity is powered by commerce data, and every interaction is optimised for outcome-based relevance. This is what will define the next phase of growth: discovery experiences that are both relevant to consumers and effective for brands.”
BOTTOM LINE
India is not simply a big market that has come of age. It is a qualitatively different one, where emotional triggers fire more readily, where influencers earn their keep, where advertising lands with a warmth that other markets can only envy, and where brands have matched consumer energy with their own conviction. As AI turbocharges the discovery engine, the gap between India and the rest of Asia-Pacific may widen yet. The impulse to buy is one thing. The infrastructure to convert it, at scale, is another. India is building both at once.