Google Says India a 'Strategic Market' for Its SMB Solutions

With mobile Internet users growing by leaps and bounds, Google India on Wednesday said India is a "strategic market" for it for offering solutions to small medium businesses (SMB) to help them grow.

"India is a strategic market for Google and we are committed to invest in solutions that cater to the needs of SMBs in India," said Suryanarayana Kodukulla, Head of SMB sales, Google India in Chandigarh.

Globally, over 2 million businesses use Google's advertising platform to find potential buyers on Internet, he said.

"India has over 48 million small medium businesses and out of this, 10 million SMBs can immediately embrace Internet and these are urban business, mom and pop stores, retail stores etc.," he said.

According to latest research conducted by Zinnov on behalf of Google, SMBs in India have been slow to adopt the Internet and out of the 48 million SMBs, only 5 to 6 percent businesses have a website.

Kodukulla said 60 percent of concentration of SMBs in the country is in 15 cities and Chandigarh is one of them.

"Most SMB access Internet here through smart phones," he said.

Speaking about the scale of Internet penetration in country, he said, "India is growing very fast in terms of Internet and most of growth is coming from mobile phones."

India has over 100 million smart phones users with 5 million new users being added every month, he said.

(Also see: India Has Higher Smartphone Usage Than the US: Study)

Out of 1.25 billion queries, 50 percent of searches are coming from mobiles, he added.

Google has launched a new product, 'Google My Business' to help Indian small medium businesses succeed online.

The new product designed to work across both desktop and mobile devices (tablets and smart phones) will help small medium businesses to create and update their business information on Google Search, Maps and Google+ from one place for free in both Hindi and English, he said.

The new product makes it easier for businesses to create their online presence even when they don't have a website and manage it from their smart phones, he added.