The festive search calendar: when India searches for Diwali, day by day
Festive demand does not arrive in one wave. It arrives in a sequence, and the sequence has barely moved in five years.
Festive search in India arrives in a fixed order. Across five seasons from 2021 to 2025, half the extra searching for corporate gifts was done 17 days before Diwali, for Diwali sales 13 days before, for Diwali gifts 7 days before and for decoration 5 days before. Dhanteras and gold coins peak on Dhanteras; greetings peak on the day.
Download the data (CSV) Daily, five festive seasons, 2021 to 2025. Free to use with attribution.
What the calendar shows
- Business gifting is searched first. Half the season’s extra searching for corporate gifts is done 17 days before Diwali, and a quarter of it 34 days before.
- Searches for Diwali sales come next, half done 13 days before Diwali.
- Personal gifts and outfits crowd the final stretch: half done 7 and 8 days before Diwali.
- Decoration comes last among the gift, clothing and home searches, half done 5 days before.
- Dhanteras and gold coins peak 2 days before Diwali, on Dhanteras itself; greetings peak on Diwali itself.
- Corporate gifts, sales, personal gifts and decoration reached their halfway points in that order in every one of the five seasons.
Each search starts from its own quiet level in August, rises as the festival approaches and falls back within days of Diwali. What differs is when it rises. The calendar below shows, for each search, when a quarter, half and three quarters of the season’s extra searching had happened, as the median of five seasons.
Business gifting starts first
Companies plan ahead of everyone else. Searches for corporate gifts run all year, and the festive rise on top of them starts early: a quarter of it is done 34 days before Diwali and half 17 days before, against 7 days for personal Diwali gifts. Made-to-order gifts need that lead time, which is why the guide to corporate Diwali gifts people keep starts with the calendar.
Deals before gifts
Searches for Diwali sales are half done 13 days before Diwali and peak a median 11 days out, well ahead of searches for gifts. People look for the deal before they decide what to buy with it.
The final stretch belongs to gifts, clothes and decoration
Personal gifting builds for weeks but is concentrated late: half the extra searching for Diwali gifts happens in the last 7 days, and it peaks 2 days before Diwali. Outfits follow the same shape, half done 8 days before and peaking on Diwali itself, and decoration comes last, half done 5 days before.
Dhanteras and gold: decided in days
Searches for Dhanteras and for gold coins rise late and sharply, and both peaked 2 days before Diwali, on Dhanteras, in every one of the five seasons. Dhanteras is the traditional day for buying gold, silver, utensils and vehicles, and for a jeweller or a vehicle brand the season is decided in a few days rather than a few weeks.
Greetings arrive on the day
Searches for Diwali wishes peak on Diwali itself. Content made to be shared, greetings, cards and messages, is looked for on the day itself, when shopping searches have already fallen away.
The calendar for 2026
Diwali falls on 8 November 2026. Applying the five-season medians to that date gives the dates below. They are a guide to timing, not a forecast of any brand’s demand. On the medians, a quarter of this season’s corporate gifting searches were done by 5 October, while personal gifting reaches its quarter mark around 23 October.
| Search | A quarter done | Half done | Peak day |
|---|---|---|---|
| Corporate gifts | 5 October | 22 October | 1 November |
| Diwali sale | 18 October | 26 October | 28 October |
| Diwali outfit | 24 October | 31 October | 8 November |
| Diwali gifts | 23 October | 1 November | 6 November |
| Diwali decoration | 28 October | 3 November | 5 November |
| Gold coin | 29 October | 5 November | 6 November |
| Dhanteras | 5 November | 6 November | 6 November |
| Diwali wishes | 7 November | 8 November | 8 November |
Sale names: how much searching the event name captures
The two largest online festive sales have names of their own. In the sale period of each season, from 45 days before Diwali to 5 days after, we compared searches for each event name with plain searches for the platform and the word sale.
A recurring festive moment with its own name can become the way people ask for it. In the 2021 festive sale period, 23% of searches for Flipkart’s sale used the event’s own name, Big Billion Days, and 28% of searches for Amazon’s used Great Indian Festival; the rest asked for the platform and the word sale. By 2025 the figures were 67% and 38%. Search data cannot show why the gap opened, but a name kept the same year after year is an asset that a new campaign line every October cannot build.
Great Indian Festival is also an ordinary phrase, so some of its searches will not be about the sale at all, which if anything flatters Amazon’s figure.
Data table
| Season | Flipkart: searches using Big Billion Days | Amazon: searches using Great Indian Festival |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 23% | 28% |
| 2022 | 33% | 31% |
| 2023 | 50% | 37% |
| 2024 | 59% | 38% |
| 2025 | 67% | 38% |
The full table
Days relative to Diwali, median of five seasons; a negative number is days before. The last column shows the earliest and latest halfway point across the five seasons.
| Search | A quarter done | Half done | Three quarters done | Peak day | Half done, earliest to latest season |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Corporate gifts | -34 | -17 | -9 | -7 | -24 to -15 |
| Diwali sale | -21 | -13 | -6 | -11 | -14 to -10 |
| Diwali outfit | -15 | -8 | -2 | 0 | -9 to -5 |
| Diwali gifts | -16 | -7 | -3 | -2 | -8 to -6 |
| Diwali decoration | -11 | -5 | -2 | -3 | -5 to -4 |
| Gold coin | -10 | -3 | -2 | -2 | -5 to -2 |
| Dhanteras | -3 | -2 | -2 | -2 | -2 to -2 |
| Diwali wishes | -1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 to 0 |
How the calendar is built
For each search term and each festive season from 2021 to 2025, we requested daily Google Trends data for India over a 91-day window, from 75 days before Diwali to 15 days after it, one term per request, so every day in every window sits at a known distance from Diwali. Diwali is Lakshmi Puja as listed in the central government’s holiday calendar for that year. The data was retrieved on 19 October 2026.
A term’s baseline is the median of the first 15 days of its window, well before the festival. Its festive lift on any day is its search interest above that baseline. Between 60 days before Diwali and 10 days after, we find the days by which a quarter, half and three quarters of the season’s lift had happened, and the day of the peak. The calendar reports the median of the five seasons for each.
For the sale names, each season is one request containing Big Billion Days, Great Indian Festival, Flipkart sale and Amazon sale, so all four share one scale. The figures sum each term over the sale period, 45 days before Diwali to 5 days after, which leaves out the Independence Day sales in August.
What it does not tell you
Google Trends reports relative interest, not volumes, and each season of each term here has its own scale, so the calendar reads timing within a season, not growth between seasons. The terms are in English; a great deal of festive searching in India happens in Hindi and other languages, in Roman script and in their own, and on marketplaces, YouTube and social platforms rather than search engines. Search is also not purchase: the calendar shows when people look, and buying usually follows within days. The 2021 season took place as pandemic restrictions eased, though its timings sit close to the other four.
Use and citation
The data is free to use, quote and republish under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Please cite it as: Colleviate Festive Search Calendar, India, October 2026, colleviate.com, with a link to this page. Source data: Google Trends.
The same read can be built for a brand’s own category and competitors; it is part of the share of search work we publish for India.
Sources
- Google Trends: understanding the data, Google News Initiative, undated
Questions we get asked
When do people in India start searching for Diwali gifts?
The rise starts weeks out, but most of it is late: a quarter of the season’s extra searching for Diwali gifts is done 16 days before Diwali and half of it 7 days before, as the median of five seasons from 2021 to 2025.
When do businesses search for corporate Diwali gifts?
Earlier than consumers. Half the season’s extra searching for corporate gifts is done 17 days before Diwali and a quarter 34 days before.
Where does the data come from?
Google Trends, for India, at daily resolution, one search term per request, in a 91-day window around Diwali for each season from 2021 to 2025. Timings are measured relative to Diwali, so seasons can be compared although the date moves.
Can I use the data?
Yes. It is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence: use, quote and republish it with credit to the Colleviate Festive Search Calendar and a link to this page.
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