CEO Rajan
Anandan, Google India “Mission Is To Digitise India”
Google
India’s chief says enabling access and local language content will drive the
company forward
Google has taken to India, and
vice-versa, like nobody has in the Internet world. There is the search engine,
there is Gmail, there is YouTube and there is Google Maps. Not to forget the
mobile OS Android that has captured over 80 per cent of the handset market,
thanks to a worthy partner in Samsung Mobile. The challenge is to keep it
going. So, it is deepening its roots in India in ingenious ways, not all of
which are paying instant dividends. Google India’s VP and managing director
Rajan Anandan explains how it is following the classic Google philosophy in
India too — get people onto the network; and monetisation will follow. Edited
excerpts:
To what extent does Google glocalise?
A fair bit, but it is very focused. By the end of this year, the Internet in India will be bigger than the Internet in the US, in terms of the number of users. What is interesting is that the first 150 million Indians are proficient in English — they read, write, speak English. Beyond that, they don’t. So the most important thing is that the Internet product (should) work extremely well in local languages. Today, if you look at what we call the ‘Indic’ Web, it is at a very early stage and there are serious bottlenecks to it. Then comes the real challenge — access. The current keyboards in Hindi or Tamil or Kannada are basically not usable. Voice or speech recognition in local languages does not work. So access, the first step to Internet usage, is a challenge. We are working on a number of things like how do we improve our keyboards and how do we get speech right in local languages. Then, we do a whole lot of things around getting local language content on the Internet. India doesn’t have a shortage of local language content, but it is not on the Internet. Finally, advertising today on the Internet is largely in English. We have to develop an ad ecosystem.
And the ecosystem is...
In India, we take a lot more first-to-the-world initiatives. Take, for instance, ‘Helping Women Get Online’. We launched this three months ago to double the number of women on the Indian Internet. In most markets — US, China, Brazil and Russia — the number of women and men on the Internet is roughly equal. In India, only 30 per cent users are women. On a percentage basis, India has fewer women than the Middle East. We launched this initiative to address access, awareness and partner with the ecosystem to double the number of women on the Indian Internet. Then, India has 47 million small businesses. Two and a half years ago only a hundred thousand small businesses had a website. You can’t build an Internet economy if less than 0.2 per cent of businesses have a Web presence. We launched the initiative to get Indian businesses online. We have 400,000 businesses online today. That is 1 per cent. Now, the question is how to get to 5 and 10 per cent. It is a huge investment for us. Third, is the partnership we have with Nasscom for 10,000 startups over the next decade. This, in a market where if you fast forward 4-5 years, with half a billion on the Internet and 350 million unable to read, write or speak English. It will be local language apps. Those ideas are never going to be built by Google. They are going to come from entrepreneurs from those markets that are going to start companies, build apps and products.
But innovation wasn’t happening. India has 3 million IT professionals. Israel has 4 million people. Yet, it has 800 funded tech companies per year. We have between 100 and 150. China has about 5,000. The US has 15,000. And, we will soon become the second-largest Internet market. Clearly, left to itself, the startup ecosystem was not developing. It is the most ambitious startup programme in the world. Last year, 80 companies got funded. This year, we will double the Internet ecosystem.
Other than indiagetonline, most of these are initiatives to expand the pie. What about monetisation?
From the monetisation point of view, we are doing fine. India is the fastest-growing big market in the world for Google. We have ads, we have enterprise products, we are the largest cloud services company in terms of the number of businesses on our cloud platform. And, over time, we have had direct consumer pay — Google Play. Among ads, we have search ads and traditional displays (Google Display Network with 50,000 websites). We also have video ads on YouTube — the masthead; the first box when you are watching the video; instream, when you are 7-8 minutes into the video; and one on the side. Then, we have mobile. It is our fastest-growing business in India — mobile search, mobile display, in-app advertising, all kinds of formats. One of the innovations is introducing ads in local languages. If you look at the print industry, there is $3 billion in ad spend — $1.5 billion in English, $1.5 billion in vernacular. Vernacular is growing, English is not. Today, all the ads on the Web are in English. Soon, you will see vernacular ads. If you want to build a $1-billion company in India, solve voice recognition in Indian languages. Our overarching mission is to digitise India. It has got three pillars — get consumers online, get content online, and get local businesses online.
To what extent does Google glocalise?
A fair bit, but it is very focused. By the end of this year, the Internet in India will be bigger than the Internet in the US, in terms of the number of users. What is interesting is that the first 150 million Indians are proficient in English — they read, write, speak English. Beyond that, they don’t. So the most important thing is that the Internet product (should) work extremely well in local languages. Today, if you look at what we call the ‘Indic’ Web, it is at a very early stage and there are serious bottlenecks to it. Then comes the real challenge — access. The current keyboards in Hindi or Tamil or Kannada are basically not usable. Voice or speech recognition in local languages does not work. So access, the first step to Internet usage, is a challenge. We are working on a number of things like how do we improve our keyboards and how do we get speech right in local languages. Then, we do a whole lot of things around getting local language content on the Internet. India doesn’t have a shortage of local language content, but it is not on the Internet. Finally, advertising today on the Internet is largely in English. We have to develop an ad ecosystem.
And the ecosystem is...
In India, we take a lot more first-to-the-world initiatives. Take, for instance, ‘Helping Women Get Online’. We launched this three months ago to double the number of women on the Indian Internet. In most markets — US, China, Brazil and Russia — the number of women and men on the Internet is roughly equal. In India, only 30 per cent users are women. On a percentage basis, India has fewer women than the Middle East. We launched this initiative to address access, awareness and partner with the ecosystem to double the number of women on the Indian Internet. Then, India has 47 million small businesses. Two and a half years ago only a hundred thousand small businesses had a website. You can’t build an Internet economy if less than 0.2 per cent of businesses have a Web presence. We launched the initiative to get Indian businesses online. We have 400,000 businesses online today. That is 1 per cent. Now, the question is how to get to 5 and 10 per cent. It is a huge investment for us. Third, is the partnership we have with Nasscom for 10,000 startups over the next decade. This, in a market where if you fast forward 4-5 years, with half a billion on the Internet and 350 million unable to read, write or speak English. It will be local language apps. Those ideas are never going to be built by Google. They are going to come from entrepreneurs from those markets that are going to start companies, build apps and products.
But innovation wasn’t happening. India has 3 million IT professionals. Israel has 4 million people. Yet, it has 800 funded tech companies per year. We have between 100 and 150. China has about 5,000. The US has 15,000. And, we will soon become the second-largest Internet market. Clearly, left to itself, the startup ecosystem was not developing. It is the most ambitious startup programme in the world. Last year, 80 companies got funded. This year, we will double the Internet ecosystem.
Other than indiagetonline, most of these are initiatives to expand the pie. What about monetisation?
From the monetisation point of view, we are doing fine. India is the fastest-growing big market in the world for Google. We have ads, we have enterprise products, we are the largest cloud services company in terms of the number of businesses on our cloud platform. And, over time, we have had direct consumer pay — Google Play. Among ads, we have search ads and traditional displays (Google Display Network with 50,000 websites). We also have video ads on YouTube — the masthead; the first box when you are watching the video; instream, when you are 7-8 minutes into the video; and one on the side. Then, we have mobile. It is our fastest-growing business in India — mobile search, mobile display, in-app advertising, all kinds of formats. One of the innovations is introducing ads in local languages. If you look at the print industry, there is $3 billion in ad spend — $1.5 billion in English, $1.5 billion in vernacular. Vernacular is growing, English is not. Today, all the ads on the Web are in English. Soon, you will see vernacular ads. If you want to build a $1-billion company in India, solve voice recognition in Indian languages. Our overarching mission is to digitise India. It has got three pillars — get consumers online, get content online, and get local businesses online.
Rajeev
Dubey 140407
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