Google makes big bucks thanks to iPhone

Searches made on mobile devices are growing “above expectations”

Google is making big bucks on searches made on the Apple iPhone. The company said Apple iPhone users are responsible for 50 times more searches compared to other mobile devices, the

Financial Times

reports.

“We thought it was a mistake and made our engineers check the logs again,” Vic Gundotra, head of Google’s mobile operations, told the FT.

Searches made on mobile devices are growing “above expectations”, both in terms of the number of searches made and money made from advertising, Gundotra said.

Mobile overtaking fixed web searches

“If the trend continues and other handset manufacturers follow Apple’s lead in making web access easy, the number of mobile searches will overtake fixed internet searches “within the next several years”, Gundotra told the FT.

The high number of Google searches made on iPhones can be explained by the generous data packages tied to the device. AT&T has previously said it makes around double the average amount of revenue from iPhone users than other devices for this reason.

FT also reports that a Google phone is “unlikely”, despite heavy speculations over the past year. Instead, the search giant is looking to get its new Android mobile operating system developed on as many types of mobile handsets as possible.

“We want every phone to be a Google phone,” Gundotra said. “We are ultimately talking about thousands of devices.”

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