As more and more cell phone users access the mobile web, it’s not a surprise that mobile search is becoming one of the first widely-used mobile web services — fifteen percent of Koreans that access the Internet with a cell phone use mobile search, according to this Korea Times article today, and Google and SK Telecom plan to release their mobile search engine next month to push that number even higher. In comparison, 8% of cell phone users have ever searched the web via cell phones in the U.K., and a little over 10 million have tried it out at least once in the U.S., according to M:Metrics.
Given Google’s search-synonymous brand, this begs the question, how well will Google’s search fare in the mobile environment? If it is up to consumers and brand recognition alone, the company could easily dominate many of the world’s mobile search markets. Out of the 10 million plus subscribers who tried out mobile search in the U.S, Google was used around half of the time, or by 5.25 million users. But Yahoo also had around 4 million users and MSN Mobile/MSNBC had around 1 million. AOL Mobile, Go2 Search, and “I’m not sure who provides my mobile search” made up the rest.
Google might be leading off the U.S. mobile search market with its brand name, but the mobile web isn’t yet like the open Internet environment. Carriers, and handset makers, still dominate the mobile deck. Yeah, mobile web users can just type in any web site in a mobile browser, but the deck still dominates mobile eyeballs and some carriers don’t want to do a deal with such a dominant search brand like Google. That means Google might not as-easily recreate its web-based search success on cell phones. Tellingly, Sprint announced a deal with Microsoft for mobile search last week.
We were curious how much progress Google has actually made, doing deals with carriers and handset makers for mobile search. We asked Google and they compiled this timeline for us. How well do you think Google is handling the mobile search market?
Google’s mobile search deals with carriers:
- Leap Wireless - 11/6/2006
- SK Telecom - 10/30/2006
- NTT DoCoMo - 10/5/2006
- Celcom - 9/20/2006
- Optus - 9/14/2006
- KDDI - 7/19/2006
- Beeline - 5/16/2006
- Telefonica - 5/3/2006
- Vodafone - 2/14/2006
- T-Mobile EU - 6/29/2005
Google’s mobile search deals with OEMs (type of deal varies):
- Nokia - 5/16/2006
- BenQ - 4/27/2006
- Sony Ericsson - 2/28/2006
- Opera - 1/24/2006
- Research in Motion - 1/12/2006
- Motorola - 1/5/2006
11 comments so far
11:47 AM PT
Just striking deals simply because they are Google does not mean they speak mobile. Google does not understand this space.
2:43 PM PT
How’s it doing in India ?
2:51 PM PT
I feel mobile search is entirely a different planet compared to the web search.
I would hate to scroll through the search results on my mobile, so search should be intellegent enough to “read my mind”.
Since the mobile display screen is so small, good enough to display only the search results. The big question is, how Google Adsense can target the mobile user community ?
6:05 PM PT
I haven’t tried any other search engine from my mobile, but I really appreciate that Google automagically translates most content into a format that’s decently readable on a handset.
7:25 PM PT
I walked away pretty impressed with googles mobile offering. I really have not tried any other offering except live mobile and i felt that google comes away on top.
GMobile does the same nice things that makes the normal google so cool. Search for “Borat” and it gives you showtimes near your area ( assuming you sold your soul and gave them your zip code in the first place ) … Google news mobile also links to articles optimized for mobile devices.
Click on any search result and google resizes the page for your device( Hmm is that a good idea ? ) All in all mobile search has lots of cool possibilities, But google has got great products out there to build on !
9:43 PM PT
I wonder, who will break the carriers’ monopoly on content?
4:20 AM PT
When Google, Microsoft or Yahoo realize that mobile search is really mobile find, then this space takes off.
4INFO,/a> is making great strides at delivering info on the mobile, but the ability to link directly to a specific site will be the golden goose for mobile.
Google will start to sell LINK Words that allow advertisers to go directly to a specific site.
Combine a LINK word with your location (GPS) and mobile find is complete.
I envision LINK words and GPS coordinates being the new “keywords” for advertising.
5:50 AM PT
Katie, you would have noticed by now, that Google aren’t flubbing mobile search, they are just flattening it out.
As your poll shows, so far, we use Google search on the mobile, in much the same way we use Google search on the desktop.
Of course, they are making the content viewable, which is so important in these early days of multiple standards. That’s important!
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