We have 10,000 full-length Indian movies on YouTube: Google India chief

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While Google’s search business and online video site YouTube are growing briskly,  the Internet giant is busy with a grand plan to put 400 million Indians on to the Web.

Google’s India managing director Rajan Anandan told Hindustan Times in an interview that tablet-based usage was a key area of focus, as was the development of exclusive media content. Excerpts:

Q: What is the big picture now since you took over at Google India?
Ans: We are very pleased about how the mobile Internet is developing on the device side.When I joined (Google India) there were less than 2 million connected smartphones in India but by the end of 2013 there will be 70 million connected smartphone users in India. So this low-cost highly affordable smartphone phenomenon has begun to happen in the country and we are very glad about it. We are seeing explosive growth for all our products on mobile whether it is search or it is the video. YouTube, for instance, now has 38% of its use from mobiles.

Q: So where is your next phase of growth going to come from? Will it continue only through the smartphones or from tablets as well?
And: Well, the next phase of our mobile growth is really from the tablets.

Today, we really have affordable tablets in India and the growth has been explosive. In fourth quarter of 2012, tablet shipments surpassed consumer notebook shipments in India. In the fourth quarter of 2013, tablet shipments will surpass all notebook shipments and sometime very soon tablet shipments will surpass all notebook and desktop shipments in India. So, in tablets we are at the same place where smartphones were probably a year and half ago. On the device side we have made tremendous progress….

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