Google has been making some serious waves in India as of late and the plan is, to continue the trend. Two examples of this that will be briefly reviewed here are Dunzo and Alphabet Inc.
The first direct investment in an Indian startup that Google has made is Dunzo. In this unprecedented move, the multi-billion corporation has been at the head of an investment valued at $12 million as part of its push for ‘Next Billion Users,’ while it establishes an ecosystem in the country throughout high-frequency hyper-local transactions. This will also substantially impact – positively – India’s education, financial and healthcare sectors.
Earlier this year, Google International put Rs 1,204 crore into google India which was the largest and only investment it has made since 2008 in the unit.
Moving on to Alphabet Inc., Google just launched a (smaller) version of its Android software in India in an effort to attract huge support from the country’s pool of basic phone users in the fast-growing wireless services market. The Android Oreo Go operating system can work on entry-level smartphones with memory of as low as 512 megabytes. Given that only around one third of India’s mobile phone subscribers are with smartphones, there is a huge market for these cheaper handsets. And, alongside this trend, Google announced a Google Assistant version for its low-cost 4G-enabled device, JioPhone.