Google (NSDQ: GOOG) whittled its mobile businiess down to the basics for its third ‘educational’ webcast of the year Monday. The company’s three main points:
1) Simple data plans, more powerful mobile browsers, and better smartphones are driving usage of the mobile internet. Specifics: Google alone has seen mobile search traffic jump five-fold over the last two years and there are now 50 million active users of Google’s mobile maps.
2) Google will invest in mobile apps. Executives showed off Google’s new mobile product search as well as ‘Goggles,’ which lets people search by taking a picture from their phones.
And 3) Google’s goal is to make mobile advertising easy. As an example, engineering VP Vic Gundotra demonstrated how an advertiser could target mobile phones simply by selecting a different radio button on a website.
Now for the hard parts, which came up during the question and answer session. Will mobile searches take away share from desktop ones? Answer: No (Think of a person going out to lunch who pulls out his or her phone on the way to make a search, Gundotra said).
As for the importance of the AdMob acquisition — which is in regulatory limbo — Gundotra said he was limited in what he could say but did mention that the mobile ad network space is “highly competitive as (Apple’s) acquisition of Quattro demonstrates.” And when it comes to Apple’s lawsuit against Google partner HTC, Google’s Mario Queiroz said that while Google wasn’t a party in the suit, “we stand behind the Android operating system and the partners who (we) have worked very closely (with) to develop it.”
CFO Patrick Pichette implied in response to yet another question that the company would maintain its Android business in China even if it shut down its search business in that country, as is widely expected. “China is another great market in which Android should flourish,” he said.
Class dismissed.

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