LONDON: Popular search engine major Google is hoping to launch a mobile phone by early next year that will allows users to surf the internet on the move.
According to The Telegraph , the company hopes that its “GPhone” will be as popular as the Apple iPhone which was launched in the United States in June.
Google services, such as its search engine, e-mail and interactive maps, will be loaded on to the phone.
It is thought Google will derive its revenue from the lucrative mobile advertising market.
Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, was quoted by the paper as saying recently that mobile phone adverts are “twice as profitable or more than non-mobile phone ads because they are more personal”.
Research by Informa Telecoms and Media, a telecoms analyst, forecast that the market for mobile advertising will be worth more than 5.4 billion dollars a year by 2011.
Google is believed to have signed a deal with a Taiwanese firm to design the phone.
The company refused to confirm any plans for the phone.
A spokesman would only say: “Our ultimate goal is to help users access the information they want, no matter when or where they want it. Our users and partners want Google search and Google applications on mobile, and we are working hard to deliver that.”
Thomas Husson, an analyst at Jupiter, a research firm, was sceptical about th e GPhone, saying that at this stage, it was just a rumour.
Source: Times of India
