Google threw its hat into the ring for grabbing India's digital economy with a $10-billion battle cry. Sundar Pichai, the India-born CEO of Google and its parent company Alphabet, made the announcement at the tech company's annual India conclave on Monday afternoon, a few moments after informing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the same on a call.
The move assumes significance in the backdrop of the tie-up between Google's biggest internet rival Facebook and Reliance Jio platform, one of India's most valued companies. As the pandemic reworks ways of life and digital business takes centrestage, the move is considered crucial for grabbing pole position in the world's biggest available digital market.
“Our goal is to ensure that India not only benefits from the next wave of innovations, but leads it,” Pichai said, “(Earlier) We always had to wait for technology. Now, new technology will happen in India first.”
The roughly Rs 75,000 crore fund is for what Pichai referred to as the 'Índia Digitisation Fund' and will be disbursed over the course of the next few years through a mix of equity investments, partnerships and operational, infrastructure and ecosystem investments. “This is a reflection of our confidence in the future of India and its digital economy,” Pichai commented.
The main focus, according to Pichai, will be on four areas—building new products and services (including apps) relevant to India, empowering businesses to go digital, leveraging technologies like AI in health, education and agriculture, as well as text-to-speech technologies in all Indian languages to enable information access even for Indians who cannot read,
By pushing its heavyweight presence in areas like digital transactions (Google Pay and Spot platform) and connecting India's small businesses on a hyperlocal network, Google will go head-to-head with heavyweights like the Facebook-Jio combine, who are hoping to do the same through WhatsApp and JioMart. The race is to become a 'super app' of sorts that will combine network, technology, fintech, e-commerce and content into a sort of umbrella platform, which will garner the immense prospect India's internet-enabled market offers.
With China shutting out international players in the digital field, India remains the biggest opportunity. What makes India even more appealing is its untapped potential—so far, India's internet penetration is around 500 million, of which 450 million go online on their phones. Predictions say the number will shoot up to 750 million and above in the next couple of years. The hyperlocal commerce, as the lockdown experience showed, is too big a prize for any of the giants to ignore.
Google is also hoping the funding will spawn 'Indian' apps, and that's music to the ears of a government that just banned 59 Chinese apps. “India's app economy is growing, but we are not going to download alone, we are now going to upload,” said Telecom & IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad after hearing the Google announcement. “These are opportunities we have to develop. These digital initiatives are going to change the face of India's villages,” he added.
Before making the announcement, Pichai spoke to PM Modi, who later tweeted, “We spoke on...leveraging the power of technology to transform the lives of India's farmers, youngsters and entrepreneurs.”
