Google Optimistic About India’s Digital Economy: Pichai

Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai has restated his vision to assist India’s digital growth, and said that the current investments demonstrate the company’s confidence in the nation’s future and its digital economy.

Google had announced a $10 billion Google for India Digitization Fund last year. In line with the commitment, Reliance Jio Platforms saw an investment of $4.5 billion from the company for a 7.73 percent stake in the form of foreign direct investment (FDI). In addition, Google has recently invested up to $1 billion in Bharti Airtel.

“It is a reflection of our confidence in the future of India, its digital economy, our desire to build products there, which we think will help us globally,” said Pichai.

Regarding the company’s payment market strategy, Pichai stated that it is focusing more on the opportunities available in emerging markets like India, as it “lines up with our mission of building a more equitable internet for everyone”.

“When I look at YouTube in India, some of the commerce ideas we talked about earlier, you may see as the first stride in India first because we can get quicker feedback, a very dynamic, youthful population,” he further added regarding YouTube’s growth in India.

“So we’ll do it there (in India) and then roll it out globally. We are constantly looking for opportunities like that,” he said.

YouTube Shorts is driving user engagement for the company worldwide, including India.

“We just hit 5 trillion all-time views and have over 15 billion views each day globally. This is helping our creator community reach newer and bigger audiences,” he added.

“In 2022, we’ll stay focused on evolving our knowledge and information products, including Search, Maps and YouTube, to be even more helpful,” he said.

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