While Google already sells ads on cell phones the company wants to expand it search service to more mobile devices.
In a conference call last week Google CEO Eric Schmidt said, “Our mobile searches are increasing rapidly compared to a year ago; they are growing more quickly than nonmobile searches.” But he pointed out “they are still a very small percentage of total searches,” Schmidt said, “which is of great frustration to us.”
Sandeep Aggarwal, an analyst for Oppenheimer &Co. told Investor’s Business Daily, “There are three times more mobile users in the world than PC users,” he said. “Mobile is a very important platform for them and they are going to do everything they can to get there.”
Google has a number of deals with wireless carriers, including T-Mobile and Vodafone to provide its search service for those carriers customers. Google president and co-founder Larry Page commented on a possible Google phone or mobile operating system saying,”I don’t think again that there’s a requirement to do any things like that…we would also love to get even greater numbers of people and wider access to our applications that we provide…So I think that it is more of an opportunity for us then a cost”.
” We have tremendous usage of our current mobile applications and we have deals with very, very many different wireless carriers and so on, and many other types of carriers. I think those things will all continue.”
If Google does build its own mobile phone or wireless operating system it could damage the relationships it has with mobile carriers. Jonathan Hurd, director of Altman Vilandrie & Co. said that Google cannot afford to get dropped from any carrier while its working to expand its wireless search ad service.
