14 DAY TRIAL // Google is bullish about the Indian web market. There are about 100 million people online in India at the moment, it's the third biggest web market. But Google believes that this only scratches the surface, it says there will be 300 million internet users in India by 2014.
A market so big tripling in two years makes it a huge opportunity for anyone involved. China may be getting a lot more attention these days, but India may be a better choice for outside companies.
International players have had a hard time cracking the Chinese market, government favoritism of local players is hard to combat.
Things are better in India, a growing middle class and less government interference are a ripe opportunity for web companies.
That said, there's not much money to be made in India, from online advertising, at this point. The entire market is worth about $200 million. Google is said to be owning about half of it, but it's a drop in the bucket for the company.
Google believes that this has a lot to do with advertisers in the country. They're spending big money on TV or newspaper ads, but little online. This, despite the fact, Google says, that the vast majority of people they're trying to reach are online.
Interesting, but to be expected, India, like the rest of the emerging markets, are skipping on the regular web and going straight to mobile. Most people going online for the first time do it on mobile phones.
Google believes that the huge growth in India will be spurred by the faster mobile networks rolling out across the country. Another factor will be cheaper smartphones, enabling a full web experience.
This is where Google's Android strategy comes into play. Google doesn't want to be Apple, it doesn't want to create a perfect device, it wants to give as many people access to the web, so it can make more money from advertising. The success of cheap Android smarphones, like the $100 Huawei devices that are a huge hit in places like Nigeria.