Google predicts India will be largest net market

By agencies   |   Wednesday, 24 May 2006, 19:30 IST
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LONDON: Google's chief executive Eric Schmidt has predicted that India will become the world's biggest Internet market in "about five to ten years from now, based on current trends." And what's more, Schmidt's other futurist view is that Hindi, not Hispanic, could become one of the world's three Internet languages, in conjunction with English and Chinese. Are there any special plans, for instance, on how to harness India's increasing netizen strengths with Google's strategic vision for the future. Google had no answers on Tuesday just hours after Schmidt offered a glimpse of the search engine's searchlight on the future to a riveted audience attending its ongoing Google Zeitgeist conference. Mobile telephony, he prophesied, would be the next big Internet phenomena. He pointed out, mobile phones are cheaper than PCs, there are three times more of them, growing at twice the speed, and they increasingly have Internet access. What is more, the World Bank estimates that more than two-thirds of the world's population lives within range of a mobile phone network.