Google goes mobile in India — MobileMonday Global: Industry News

^{Driven by text advertising} Google goes mobile in India

3 Dec 2006 at 14:19 GMT Timo Poropudas

Google Search will be available on the Bharti Airtel Live mobile WAP portal. Airtel consumers can retrieve data effortlessly through the Google search engine.

Google will also provide text ads appearing next to search results. As a part of the business model, advertisers will also be able to direct their advertisements to specific users.

Airtel Live will offer 50,000 information features covering various topics and columns like news, stock reminders and sports scores. It will also allow downloads of games, wall papers and video & audio clippings.

“In India, mobile is fast outgrowing the growth of PCs,” said Manoj Kohli, President of Bharti Airtel Ltd, in a statement. “Mobile users outnumber PC users in India by a factor of six. The first computing experience for the majority of Indians in the next few years will be on a mobile phone.”