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Google Turns Focus to India’s Small Businesses Amid Search for Users
CEO Sundar Pichai says Google will launch a tool for small-business owners to create mobile-friendly websites for free
By NEWLEY PURNELL
Jan. 4, 2017 5:51 a.m. ET
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NEW DELHI— Alphabet Inc.’s Google is ramping up its efforts to get India’s small businesses online, the latest step in its quest to win new users in the populous nation.
Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai said on Wednesday that the Mountain View, Calif., company will launch later this year a tool that allows owners of small businesses that are now offline to create mobile-friendly websites for free. Google says nearly three quarters of the country’s 51 million small businesses currently lack a web presence.
India will be the first country to get access to the feature, which will then be rolled out to other nations.
“India shapes how we develop products in so many ways, big and small,” the India-born Mr. Pichai told a conference of entrepreneurs here. He said the company has added more staff locally and executives have been spending more time in the South Asian nation.
Google is also partnering with an Indian business organization to provide entrepreneurs with training in skills like reaching prospective customers via mobile devices, Mr. Pichai said.
Analysts say Google is eager to increase its user base in fast-growing emerging markets like India so it can boost its advertising revenue globally. Some one billion people here still lack web access, according to consultancy McKinsey & Co., though more are coming online every day via low-cost smartphones.
Google is effectively shut out of China, having ceased most operations there in 2010 after disagreements with the government about censorship, underscoring the importance of India as a battleground for new users and advertisers.
Other U.S. tech firms that are increasingly focusing on India to fuel global growth include Uber Technologies Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc. and Facebook Inc.
Wednesday’s announcement comes after Google in September unveiled new offerings specifically for Indian users who closely watch their smartphone data costs.
The “single biggest challenge has been connectivity” in India, said Rajan Anandan, Google’s vice president and managing director for Southeast Asia and India, at the event Wednesday.
Mr. Pichai said a partnership Google launched in 2015 with the Indian government to provide free Wi-Fi at railway stations has now been implemented in 110 locations.
He noted that India was among the countries in which Google in recent months has launched its new high-end smartphone, Google Pixel, though he didn’t comment on its sales so far.
While the vast majority of smartphones sold in the country run on Google’s Android mobile operating system, many new internet users are flocking to digital advertising rival Facebook and its popular messaging platform, WhatsApp, presenting a challenge to Google.
“Google would like to be the first point of contact for users” when they get online for the first time in India, hopefully engaging with its services like search, YouTube and Gmail, said Tarun Pathak, an analyst at research firm Counterpoint.
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