By Eric Auchard
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -
Google has seen an acceleration
of Internet activity among mobile phone users in recent months
since the company has introduced faster Web services on
selected phone models, fueling confidence the mobile Internet
era is at hand, the company said on Tuesday.
Early evidence showing sharp increases in Internet usage on
phones, not just computers, has emerged from services Google
has begun offering in recent months on Blackberry e-mail
phones, Nokia devices for multimedia picture and video creators
and business professionals and the Apple iPhone, the world's
top Web search company said.
"We have very much hit a watershed moment in terms of
mobile Internet usage," Matt Waddell, a product manager for
Google Mobile, said in an interview. "We are seeing that mobile
Internet use is in fact accelerating.
The growing availability of flat-rate data plans from phone
carriers instead of per-minute charges that previously
discouraged Internet use, along with improved Web browsers on
mobile phones as well as better-designed services from
companies like Google are fueling the growth, Waddell argued.
Google made the pronouncement as it introduced a new
software download for mobile phones running Microsoft Corp's
Windows Mobile software that conveniently positions a Google
Web search window on the home screen of such phones.
Similar versions of the search software which Google
introduced for Blackberry users in December and certain Nokia
phones in February have sped up the time users take to perform
Web searches by 40 percent and, in turn, driven usage.
The software shortcuts the time it takes for people to
perform Web searches on Google by eliminating initial search
steps of finding a Web browser on the phone, opening the
browser, waiting for network access, and getting to Google.
By making a Google search box more convenient, mobile phone
users have begun using the Internet more, the company said.
"We are actually seeing a 20 percent increase in the number
of searches by people," Waddell said.
Google's mobile plug-in software lets users customize their
phones to feature Google mobile services instead of relying
solely on software features network carriers have pre-installed
on the devices.
"Faster is better than slow, especially on a mobile device,
where fast is much better than slow," Waddell said. "Not only
are we are seeing increased user satisfaction but also greater
usage."
Microsoft expects to have sold 20 million Windows Mobile
devices by the end of its fiscal year in June, which together
with Blackberry and Symbian-based phones represent upward of 85
percent of the Internet-ready smartphones sold in the world.
Users of phones based on software from Research in Motion,
Nokia's Symbian-based phones and now Microsoft Windows Mobile
can download the software at http://mobile.google/.
Google officials said in August that they had seen a
similar surge in usage of Google via mobile devices
following the launch of the Apple iPhone last year. The iPhone
offers a full-featured Internet browser unlike many phones.
Waddell said Google had seen iPhone users perform as many
as 50 times more Web searches on these computer-phone devices
as users of standard mobile feature phones typically do.
(Reporting by Eric Auchard; editing by Louise Heavens)
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