Searching for newer territories to conquer, Google is extending its battlefield beyond search and social networking to mobile application.
After coming out with Android – its operating system for cell phones – the company is now aggressively tapping the mobile application market as the use of internet on mobile takes off in a big way.
The search company is specially excited about the India, whose market data looks very promising.
Alok Goel, product manager - mobile,Google India, who has drawn big plans for the company’s mobile internet application business is quick to furnish such statistics.
“Mobile telephony has witnessed high adoption in the country; internet penetration is 7% and has jumped from 8-9 million users some years back to 25 million in 2009. Broadband users in this category are pegged at 7.6 million and mobile internet users till September 2008 were 2 million. The silver lining, however, is that mobile internet market is slowly emerging in India,” he added.
“We expect the number of mobile internet users in India to quadruple by the end of 2010.”
In India, Google is bullish about mobile application mainly because telecom service providers are pushing their data products in a big way, which is making them affordable due to their sheer volumes.
“Aircel's pocket internet plan of Rs14 for three days, Rs 98 for a month and TATA Docomo's less than Rs100 plan would give this market (mobile internet) the much needed impetus,” said Goel.
According to Forrester Research, by 2013, India will be the third largest internet user after China and US.
However, due to inadequate broadband and lack of infrastructure, mobile internet growth would be the next logical growth area in India.
“Surge in urban population and higher mobility in India will lead to higher growth in mobile internet,” said Goel.
The search company is already offering a host of mobile application that includes access to Google search, Gmail, Maps and Orkut. Its Google Mobile AppTM is equipped with speech
recognition technology.
“In our speech recognition technology, the device recognises Indian accents. Its repository has thousands of Indian words including name of the people, places, movies and songs. So, this application enables you to speak to your phone and search for anything without typing the world,” said Goel.
Similarly, image search will not only throw up visuals faster but also enable users to most popular pictures through its popular image option.
Google’s mobile application would also direct you around the city. So, if you are lost in a new place, the search engine’s Google map and latitude would play the navigator. “Google map will help you in identifying a place by giving you landmarks. Google latitude will enable you to share your location with select people,” injects Goel.
Its news application will constantly give updates to users. The company has also developed several entertainment applications for the mobile phone.
Comments