Online growth to be fueled by phone technologies

20 February 2007

Increased mobile phone usage in large emerging markets such as India will result in the technology driving future online growth, it has been suggested.

Google vice president and web evangelist Vinton G. Cerf made the claim when speaking to reporters in Bangalore, India, citing pricing as a key factor in his prediction.

"You will get those other 5.5 billion people only when affordability increases and the cost of communication goes down. The mobile phone has become an important factor in the Internet revolution," he commented.

Cerf himself is widely credited as one of the founding fathers of the internet, having worked extensively on its creation in the late 1970s.

Other media companies are already preparing for such developments, with Vodafone this month announcing that it was to buy a major stake in Indian mobile firm Hutchinson Essar.

India is the world's fourth biggest mobile market despite penetration rates of just 15 per cent. Over seven million users are thought to sign up every month in the country, according to Reuters.

Category: Miscellaneous