Google’s Nexus One phone is a direct competitor to Apple’s iPhone and the battle lines are being drawn. As illustrated below, the launch of the Nexus One attracted a great deal of excitement online, with searches for “nexus one” accounting for 1 in every 14,000 US Internet searches the week to January 9, 2010. As illustrated in the chart below, search volume settled down, and the share of searches for “nexus one” and “iphone” were even last week (week to January 16, 2010).

Purchase intent seems high. The #3 downstream website from Google Nexus One was Google Checkout, receiving 6% of downstream visits last week. The #4 downstream site was T-Mobile USA, the Nexus One carrier, receiving 3% of visits.
Wealthy Internet users seem most interested in the Nexus One. Hitwise Experian Mosaic Data reveals that 46% of visits to the Google Nexus One website were from the two wealthiest Lifestyle groups, Affluent America and Upscale Suburbia in the four weeks to January 16, 2010.
Finally, search marketers may take heart in knowing that Google is engaging in paid search marketing along with the rest of us. YouTube was among the top downstream websites (#4) from searches for “nexus one” last week with 31% of clicks going to paid listings.