Google signed its first accord with VimpelCom, a Russian mobile phone company today, making the search engine available to users on their handsets.
“This partnership is very exciting. We are making more of a commitment to Russia,” Dennis Woodside, Google’s director for emerging markets, said at a news conference. “We see the sophistication of computer sciences here and understand we should be investing in it.”
VimpelCom is hoping that the arrangement with Google will help attract new users in a market that is almost at saturation point after eight years of economic growth. There are 134.7 million wireless subscribers in Russia, compared with a population of 143 million, and fixed lines often have poor connections.
“The handset is going to become the information access-point in the next ten years,” Woodside said.
Source: Moscow Times
Nick Wilsdon
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