Google: 40% of Searches in India from Mobiles
An astounding 40 percent of all Google searches in India are conducted using mobile phones, according to Google India managing director Rajan Anandan, and 67 percent of e-commerce happens on mobile devices, reports the Business Standard.These numbers were revealed by Anandan during Confluence 2011, a three-day business seminar organised by the prestigious Indian Institute of Management IIM in Ahmedabad. The 40 percent figure is especially striking, in light of the fact that only 14 percent of search queries in the USA, 11 percent in Russia and 6 percent in the UK are run from mobile phones.It does not come as a surprise that Google is buoyed by the growing spread of Internet connectivity in India, a cause that it has tried to contribute to through initiatives such as the Internet Bus, which has so far enabled 1.5 million Indians to use the Internet for the first time, and the offer of free Web hosting to small and medium business owners in India to set up their own websites.Anandan had earlier stated that India would have 300 million Internet users by 2014, a three-fold increase from its current online population of just over 100 million people, and that the biggest driver of growth would be the increasing adoption of mobile phones and the spread of 3G and 4G networks in the country.
Kees Winkel
