Deep Nishar, Google’s head of wireless products, skims over Google’s global mobile aspirations in a MediaGuardian interview today. Lack of a reliable landline network and web connections in growth markets like China and India has created a big opportunity for the mobile platform; access surged from English-speaking Nigeria when Google News launched on mobile in English. In French, it saw a similar traffic surge from French-speaking Africa. “Mobile is still in the investment phase and it requires the major players in the handset business, the mobile network operators and the content providers to continue to invest,” he said, adding that Google’s mobile text ads are making money already in Japan.
-- Google’s share of the search market grew by 7.2 per cent year on year according to the latest ComScore data, although last month saw a 1 percent decline from June—breaking an 11-month streak. Google has 43.7 percent of the US search market, nearly as much as its two closest competitiors combined; Yahoo, 28.8 percent; MSN/Microsoft, 12.8 percent; Time Warner, 5.9 percent; Ask, 5.4 percent. The monthly qSearch data analysed 6.3 billion US search requests for July; 2.7 billion of those were through Google. Google accounts for 50.3 per cent of toolbar searches and Yahoo 46.2 per cent.
-- Plus the transcript here of an interview with Eric Scmidt at the Search Engines Stratgies Conference on 9 August including: “We at Google have thought about maybe we could do targeted measurable television ads on real television. So we’re thinking about using our advertising system and our targetability for every form of advertising...” Transcript of the press Q&A, as well as video and audio versions too, just in case you didn’t get the message.
Related: Vodafone Looking For Fast Exit From Google Mobile Search Partnership