Google Official: Internet Growth To Be Fueled By Increase In Mobile Phone Use

Komfie Manalo - All Headline News Correspondent

Bangalore, India (AHN) - Vinton G. Cerf, vice president and chief internet evangelist of Google on Tuesday said the growing number of mobile phone users would drive internet growth as he cited India's number of mobile phone users increasing by millions every month.

Cerf said that the number of internet users in India ballooned to 1.1 billion from a mere 50 million users in 1997.

The Google executive made the prediction during his visit in the company's research and development facility in Bangalore, considered as India's Silicon Valley.

Cerf declared, "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."

There are an estimated 2.5 billion mobile phone users in the world, and these number is expected to increase rapidly particularly in China and India, the world's most populous countries.

Figures show that at lease seven million new mobile phone users are registered in India which prompted British telecom giant Vodafone to invest $11.1 billion for a controlling state in the local mobile firm Hutch-Essar in February.

Cerf said new mobile phone models offer a wide range of internet-enabled features and services, such as payment and navigation services.

He adds, "There are an enormous number of applications available on mobiles."

Google has rapidly expanded its research and service offices in the country at the cities of Hyderabad, Delhi and Mumbai besides Bangalore, but Cerf said he has been visiting India since the early 1990s to understand its tech scene.