rediff.com
New Delhi, Feb 9: Riding high on the fast growing Indian market, Google Inc on Thursday started its operations in Mumbai and New Delhi.
In a major initiative to boost its marketing and sales operations, the company plans to hire the best of talent and develop more locally relevant products and services for users and advertisers in India.
These offices, along with its existing centres in Hyderabad and Bangalore, will offer advertising services to mobile operators, content providers and movie producers throughout India.
"We are excited about the Indian market and we hope to grow across different channels in India. We are also looking at tie-ups with Indian businesses and agencies to further growth in India, Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, vice president, Asia-Pacific & Latin America, Google Inc, said.
Through these offices, Google will drive its online advertising programme, Adwords, which enables users and businesses to reach out to users through the Web. Google Adwords matches text-based ads to users' search queries providing them with information relevant to them.
"Thousands of Indian SMEs are keen to join the Adwords program. It is just a matter of educating the advertisers on the return of investment and the ease with which an advertisement can be put up and be viewed by people across the globe," says Cassidy.
Google's advertisers in India include Citibank, Monster India, Bharatmatrimony.com, MakeMyTrip, SpiceJet, Kingfisher Airlines, ICICI Bank, Shaadi.com, Ebay India, and Birla Sunlife. With offices in Mumbai and Delhi, Google plans to add more advertisers.
"E-commerce is booming in India. Now people are not just using the Internet to buy tickets, they are buying other products as well. So it's an ideal platform for advertisers to promote their advertisements online. The best part of the program is that the firm does not have to pay for the advertisement, the company has to pay only if someone clicks on the advertisement," Ashish Kashyap, Head, Sales & Operations, India said.
However the officials refused to divulge information on investment in India or the number of people they are hiring in India. Google has a staff strength of 700 in Hyderabad and it has hired people from across Indian portals for its Mumbai and Delhi offices.
"The hiring process will go on as talent is a key our operations. We spend 70 per cent of our time recruiting people," says Cassidy.
"With a projection of 100 million Net users in two years in India, it's a very interesting time for us. The online market is rapidly growing in India and more people are coming online. With the talent and skilled manpower in India, the Indian office will become as relevant as the US office in the years to come," adds Cassidy.