Google Inc. executive chairman Eric Schmidt believes India’s next wave of growth will come from the Internet and connectivity. He also said mobile platform is going to be the next big thing for the country, pointing out that the mobile space had continued to grow over the years.
At an Nasscom event in New Delhi on Wednesday, Schmidt said: “Internet and connectivity are going to bring in the next wave of growth. A population of 20 million already has broadband access while 30 million people access the internet and that still covers less than 10% of the country’s population. Some 600 to 800 million people are expected to join the conversation, to access healthcare, telemedicine, e-commerce services in their own language. So it’s a global opportunity for India.”
“I want to see more of India. It’s much bigger a place than what I expected. It dominated the global BPO market successfully.”
Speaking about the potential of the mobile, Schmidt added: “The next big thing is mobile, it was mobile last year and it was mobile the year before that.”
“Data analytics around customer behaviour, distribution etc will be another next big thing. Also artificial intelligence , the devices we carry will be able to remember and recall information about the places we’ve visited , people we met or things we have seen.”
Separately, in an interview with CNBC TV 18, Schmidt expressed concerns over the lack of proper infrastructure and adequate technology that could cause India miss the ongoing Internet revolution.
“I’m worried that India, having been satisfied with the great success of their IT revolution, have made the same mistake many companies do – they rested on their laurels without understanding how quickly technology changes,” he was quoted as saying.
“India’s connectivity to the net has always weak. There are insufficient undersea cables to handle the bandwidth, fibre optic cables are proprietary instead of public and infrastructure didn’t get enough attention”, noted Schmidt.
Eric Schmidt is currently in India as part of his mini-Asia tour. The Google executive chairman is slated to address The Guardian’s Big Tent Activate India event in New Delhi today.
Schmidt has already set the local media abuzz with his critical views on India’s position on the Internet freedom. He also hinted at the development of cheap smartphones with web browser and web-client apps.
Source: Times of India, Firstpost