Google India to shift from demand to assist mode

Google India will move away from the demand model to the assistant model to come up with more innovative products and platforms, its marketing director Sandeep Menon said.

Briefing media while unveiling ‘Google House’, a showcase of the latest product innovations for India’s ‘mobile first’ world, Menon said Google will double its offering. Menon said for the past 12 months the company has worked incredibly well to come up with products relevant and useful for India, taking into account how smartphones have evolved to become the best personal assistant.

India’s internet population is growing really fast, from 100 million users in 2011, India is now the world’s second largest internet base with 300 million users and is well-poised to touch the 500 million base by 2017, he said.

“For India, the growth in internet user base has certainly come from mobile phones. From 20 million in 2011, we have 152 million users accessing internet over their smartphones. By 2017, it is expected that 490 million (of the 500 million Internet users in the country) will access internet from their smartphones,” he said.

“We are moving away from the demand model to the assistant model in our service delivery and platform building. We want to make Google’s Search, Maps, Photos, Translate and YouTube apps understand the requirements of users and work in low network areas,” he said.

“Some of these include voice search being optimised for English in the Indian accent, and in Hindi to find answers faster, easier and more local. We are also offering offline features like the ability to save Maps or YouTube Offline to help users access services in patchy networks,” he said.

As part of showcasing latest product innovations for India’s mobile first world at the ‘Google House’, the company organised demonstrations of Google’s Search, Maps, Photos, Translate and YouTube apps.