Last week, during the Mobile World Congress 2008 in Barcelona,
Vic Gundotra, head of Google’s mobile operations told the Financial Times that they thought they had made a mistake when they saw 50 times more search requests coming from Apple iPhones than any other mobile handset — a revelation so astonishing that made him think that there was something wrong with the data.
Should other companies follow in Apple’s footsteps by making web access commonplace on their mobile handsets, Gundotra believes the number of mobile searches could outpace fixed internet search “within the next several years.”That of course means big increases in incremental advertising revenues for Google. Though its primary revenue driver remains online advertising, the company has never separated out its mobile revenues from those of traditional computer-based browsers.
Gundotra, however, also told the Financial Times that the mobile segment was growing “above expectations”, both in terms of usage and revenues.
“The world is changing. Users want an internet without fences. They know how to type in Google.com if they want to get to it,” he said. “Two years ago the operators were still playing the role of gatekeepers but that is no longer the role for them.”
The mobile boss also reiterated a long-running company position on the mobile handset market, which is that Google is unlikely to build its own mobile hardware despite widespread speculation to the contrary.
“We want every phone to be a Google phone,” he said. “We are ultimately talking about thousands of devices. The best way to do this would be to get Google’s mobile operating system, Android, deployed on as many types of handsets as possible.”
Google has the first Android-based mobile handsets from third-party manufacturers would begin shipping during the second half of 2008.
