In 2011 Google has made significant and strategic moves into the mobile market. Monty Munford says this is only the beginning for a company that believes that ‘mobile is first’
“Something fundamental is happening. A phone is no longer a phone; it is your alter ego.” Eric Schmidt, Google CEO
These words were delivered to a transfixed audience at this year’s Mobile World Congress by Google’s CEO in a three-minute speech that he read from a few pieces of A4 paper, but at least Schmidt turns up at mobile shows, Steve Jobs never attended a mobile show.
Schmidt’s words have been backed up by actions in 2011 as Google announced initiative after initiative to boost its presence in the mobile industry. Moreover, the Android operating system finally took over Number One spot from Apple this year giving Google a platform to challenge the distinct hegemonies of the operator and the handset maker.
For Google, mobile is all about advertising. Its acquisition of AdMob for a whopping $750 million was the landing screen for its expansion across the sector and has seen many emulators. The recent $200 million investment in DotMobi and on-going industry interest in the purchase of independent mobile ad servers such as Millennial Media underscore how prescient Google was in that acquisition.
Everybody will end up owning smartphones and Google knows this. Analysts Episerver announced in November that 59% of UK consumers now own a smartphone and 18% have a tablet device. According to the company 35% of these smartphone users have used them to buy something… and undoubtedly seen adverts powered by Google.
These figures will keep on rising, boosted by ‘retail events’ such as Christmas, Mothers Day and Fathers Day. According to mobile analyst G + (no relation) the mobile market will be worth a huge $670 million by 2015 of which 40% will be ‘digital goods’.
Google is astonishingly well placed and it is these aforesaid initiatives that are helping it along the way, backed up by intensive research by the company. In one in-depth study earlier this year, Google used 200 diagnostic points to measure mobile readiness of its advertisers, with other criteria such as load time, device detection and mobile optimisation.
As a result of this study it announced that a barely believable 79% of its biggest advertisers did not have a mobile optimised web site and acted quickly to address that aberration.
Its GoMo initiative (shortly to be released in the UK) in the US saw the appointment of 12 mobile web experts to create mobile-friendly sites for these agencies, advertisers and brands that were foolish enough to treat mobile as an adjunct to their businesses, not the focus of them.
Then there was Google Wallet for mobile payments and Google Mobilize, a free tool for smaller businesses to build and launch simple mobile websites. Again this was all about increasing mobile advertising revenue and encouraging SMEs to sign up for the company’s AdWords platform.
Google’s Schmidt is likely to turn up again at February’s Mobile World Congress and below him will lay a kingdom that is his company’s to own, whatever the post-Jobs products that Apple reveals.
He knows that Google will never be an operator or handset maker, but he also knows that while the mobile browser and Google search bar are currently at the centre of our so-called ‘alter egos’ it is mobile advertising that will bankroll the company for years to come.
We will not be using our mobiles less and we will not become any dumber. Nor for that matter will Google.
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