there will be 500 million
internet users in Africa by 2020.
The race is on to capture as
many of these new users as possi-
ble. Digital training programmes,
a crucial part of Google’s strategy,
help to fix the continent’s “basic
digitalliteracyproblem”,according
toLukeMckend,Google’scountry
director for South Africa. The vast
majority of African internet users
are using smartphones, meaning
they may not be getting as much
fromtheinternetastheycouldbe.BUILDING AN ECOSYSTEM
The company’s push to enter
emerging markets reflects in-
creasing competition with other
tech giants, such as Facebook
(seeTAR85,Nov.2016).Facebook
has partnered with hardware
manufacturers Ericsson, Nokia,
Samsung and MediaTek and
software company Opera to roll
out its programme, Internet.org,
which allows users in developing
countries to access a handful of
websites from their phones at no
datacharge,viatheFreeBasicsapp.
So far the programme has at-
tracted 40 million users. Google
says it is not worried. “We believe
thatastrongerinternetwithmoreplayers is good for us. It’s good
for growth in jobs in Africa, and
a strong ecosystem is good for
Google’s business,” says Caroline
Atkinson, Google’s head of glob-
al policy. “Our strategy to make
moneyinAfricaisthesameasour
strategy anywhere.”
Googlehasdominatedtheweb-
search business in many parts of
the world. The company’s Gmail
service has more than 1 billion
active monthly users. In the US,
more than 34bn Google searches
arecarriedoutacrossallplatforms
every month,accordingtofigures
from the company. But growth
is starting to plateau. As Google
solidifies its presence in estab-
lishedmarkets,itislookingfornew
opportunities elsewhere. While
Google is estimated to control
about 75% of the US market for
web searches, it controls just 10%
inChina,wherecompetitorBaidu
is popular.
Analysts agree that the time
has come for Google to look to
emerging markets. “Given how
high internet penetration and
availability are now in mature
markets, Google’s main focus,
obviously, has to be emerging
markets,” says Jan Dawson, chiefanalyst at Jackdaw Research. “For
both Google and Facebook, the
priorityatthispointissaying:‘Well
howcanwegetmorepeopleonline
andwhat’sthebestwaytodothat?
And ideally, what’s the best way
todoitinsuchawaythatthose
people end up using our services
as well at the end of the day?”
Google’s strategy to attract new
African users is centred around
training young people, building
new infrastructure and trying
to lower the cost of entry-level
smartphones.WithhubsinKenya,
NigeriaandSouthAfrica,Googleis
intheprocessoftraining1million
young people to use its products.TAR: What are the pillars
of Google’s expansion
strategy on the continent?
Google’s business is
predicated on its original
mission, which is to provide
relevant information to people
as and when they need it,
to organise the world’s
information and make
it universally accessible.
But in South Africa and
the rest of Africa, obviously
there are a whole bunch
of infrastructural challenges,
there are pricing issues around
devices and data.Would you say Google’s
main goal in Africa
is to grow its audience?
So that’s probably the
most important thing, but let’s
take one step beyond that.
One of the things that we’re
also saying is that growing
audiences is important but
there is a basic digital literacy
problem. What’s happening
in Africa is that people
are going straight to mobile
phones, and it’s not the best
experience. It’s not as intuitive
as it could be. So you actually
find that there’s a lot of workto be done around basic digital
literacy skills. We’ve launched
a programme last year
to address this. We made
a commitment to train one
million Africans face-to-face.Who do you see as
your biggest competitors
on the continent?
People who spend a lot
of time online are going to be
doing lots of different types of
things – whether it’s watching
videos, messaging, social
media – and it’s not [only]
about that online experience:people watch terrestrial
television. So if you think about
the entire media landscape,
it’s a highly competitive
landscape with everyone
competing for the time and
attention that is limited to the
24 hours you have in a day.
From that perspective, I think
the competitive environment
is actually very rich. People
will still read a newspaper in
a lot of environments; in South
Africa radio is an old-fashioned
medium and it’s actually
growing very fast.
Interview byM.A.LukeMckend
Country director, Google South AfricaMaking information universally accessible
$90.27bn
Revenue made
by Google’s
parent
company,
Alphabet,
in 2016, up
from $74.99bn
in 2015SOURCE:ALPHABET62 BUSINESS|COMPANIES&MARKETS