Bangalore: The report on mobile behavior in India, prepared by Google and Ipsos, a global market research company says that 46 percent of Smartphone users in India use their devices to seek directions.

India lacks the culture of using maps, but the scenario is changing with advent of Smartphones, said Lalitesh Katragadda, head of Google's product division in India.

"The new-generation of professionals who have migrated to the big cities from smaller towns and villages are gradually learning the benefits of digital maps. In most cases these people are not very familiar with cities and they are using maps to navigate around," said Katragadda to The Times of India. "In a way, we are building a culture of using maps in India."

Katragadda said India is the fastest growing market for Google Maps, and to bolster its service, Google has recently added navigation, live traffic updates and maps to support Google Maps. 

GPS enabled Smartphones are the reason behind this sweeping change in how India used the digital maps for navigation. Google Maps comes loaded with all the features to guide the seeker of direction in the country. On its android platform it’s like a hot cake ready to be grabbed by users.

Nokia is another company which rolled its sleeves to provide better navigation for users, and has put lot of efforts on maps and location services in its Smartphones and it is the company which provided this service in India before Android era. Nokia’s mapping is strong in many Indian cities and towns, and sports features like navigation, traffic updates and offline maps.  

According to the data collected through maps.google.com in August this year, Google says hotels are the most searched destinations in metros like Delhi, Bangalore, and Mumbai. The data reveals that, people in Delhi and Mumbai are foodies with Karim’s and Hard Rock Café top searched hangout joints respectively. Meanwhile for Bangaloreans, malls are most searched destinations; Phonenix Market City is the most sought out mall. Educational institutes, particularly engineering colleges come second on the most sought destination list.

Recently, Google has come up with the tool called Map Maker, enabling users’ direct involvement in mapping thousands of cities and country sides in India. 

"India is an important market for Google. India's citizen mappers have constantly helped us edit and improve Google maps, bringing in deep, rich maps, and local information alive for India," said Katragadda.