Thursday, 17 December 2015 - 7:35am IST | Place: New Delhi | Agency: dna | From the print edition
There is a strong business case in the announcements made on Wednesday by the US-based Internet search company CEO Sundar Pichai on his maiden visit to India after he took over as its head.
If free Wi-Fi at 100 Indian railways stations,Project Loon to provide Internet through balloons, Internet Sathi programme for training three lakh women in villages and other such plans of Google will help the government to push its Digital India initiative, it will also lift the revenues of the Santa Clara headquartered search company.
Here's how Google will commercially gain from what it plans to do in India.
G Krishna Kumar, Bangalore-based telecom executive, said the widening of internet user base in India will lead to Google improving its advertisement revenues, which currently constitutes over 90% of its total revenue.
"By enabling internet access to more people, Google's ad revenue can be strengthened," he said.
"By enabling internet access to more people, Google's ad revenue can be strengthened," he said.
The Project Loon and Internet Sathi too will help in further penetration of internet in the country, which would translate into higher advertisement revenues for the company.
"Still over 50,000 villages in India don't have internet access and the Project Loon provides a sudden opportunity for enabling Internet access. How well Google is able to handle the operational problems that they would encounter will be critical," he said.
Krishna Kumar pointed that if the system developed by Google is robust enough then it will certainly help the government's Digital India. He said the business model between the search company and the telecom companies (telcos) would also be critical for its success.
In Indonesia, Google recently tied-up with telcos for offering Internet services through Project Loon.
"It will be interesting to see how this will play out and can provide learning for Google's plan to implement in other countries (like India)," he said.
Telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said his ministry has given an in-principle nod for the Project Loon's pilot and a final decision would be taken after all the security aspects and clearances from aviation ministry were sorted out.
"In-principle, we are agreeable for a pilot project (Loon). Certain issues of security and the harmony with civil aviation ministry have to be done. We'll finalise that also, but surely we are quite open to the idea of the Project Loon being undertaken on a pilot basis," he said.
Prasad informed Google will partner with BSNL for the pilot.
Google's free Wi-Fi at 100 railway stations by 2016, beginning with Mumbai Central Station, would also bring in revenues from both advertisement and increased surfing with easy Internet accessibility at the stations, which would be cheaper than the roaming rates on regular mobile services.
"Most of these free Wi-Fi come with advertisements. Also, we have generally seen that people tend to continue surfing even after the free browsing time is over at stations and airports as they are cheaper than roaming charges," said Krishna Kumar.
Other announcements made by Pichai include hiring in Bangalore and Hyderabad, setting up new campus in Hyderabad, training two million developers along with the National Skill Development Council and bicycle for women (Internet Sathi) programme to help women get online.
The Google chief expects India's Android user base to surpass that of US by next year.
"We are excited to partner for Internet Sathi along with Community Service Centres (CSCs) and we are focused on bringing Google's products to many more Indian languages so that we can reach Indian villages," said Pichai after his meeting with Prasad.
