15 July, 2020: By Ajoy Maitra
On 13 July, 2020, announced at the sixth edition of the company's "Google for India" event, Sundar Pichai, chief executive officer (CEO) of Alphabet Inc. and its subsidiary Google, said that the firm was committed to empowering small businesses and building products suited to India's requirements and thereby further commited to invest $10 billion in India, over the next 5-7 years through a "Google for India Digitisation Fund".

India's digital economy in 2017-18 accounted for 8% of nominal GDP, or about $200 billion, according to estimates of McKinsey Global Institute (MGI). The report mentioned that most of this value nearly $170 billion comes from the core sectors that already provide digital products and services at scale, including IT and business process management (IT-BPM) at $115 billion, digital communication services, including telecommunications at $45 billion & electronics manufacturing, including mobile handsets at $10 billion. A sharp rise in the use of smartphones in India has contributed to an immense digital growth in India over the years and the present Global pandemic has super-charged the adoption of digital methods of payments through UPI. Such digitization has encouraged ease of transactions with more and more inclusion of various small businesses into the formal economy which enhanced the future credit facilities for them. The number of smartphones and internet subscriptions could continue to go up rapidly in the next five years.

The rise of technology and its faster dissipation has changed the life of common man in various ways. India is seeing an effect of global village. However, earlier the economy and risks were in different space. Global economy has while increased its space and conversed with the cyber space, it has multiplied the risks which were in isolation from the economy earlier. Latest reports states that, India's digitization would account more than 80% of the senior citizens in the next 6 months. Google's move towards investment in Indiathrough a mix of equity investments, partnerships and operational, infrastucture & ecosystem investments, shows confidence in the future of India and its digital economy.
The areas of focus of the investment are
1. Enabling affordable access and information for every Indian in their own language, whether it's Hindi, Tamil, Punjabi or any other

2. Building new products and services that are deeply relevant to India's unique needs

3. Empowering businesses as they continue to embark on their digital transformation

4. Leveraging technology and AI for social good, in areas like health, education and agriculture.


Apart from its indirect investment in the country, Google has made direct investment in start-ups such as hyper-local delivery app 'Dunzo' and e-commerce app 'Fynd'. Focusing on India takes centre stage for the global tech giants such as Facebook, Amazon, and Google, as India emerges as the country having the largest number of internet users. In April, Facebook picked up a minor stake in Jio for $5.7 billion, making it the largest foreign direct investment in the technology space in India. Earlier this year, Amazon committed to invest $1 billion in the country to empower small businesses, shift online.

Google's first office opening in Hyderabad & Bangalore in the year 2004, enhanced a major uplift of the common people with their knowledge of digital uses, mainly empowering women thorugh various programmes. Started with five employees in 2004 and since then has grown to be amongst the largest Google employee bases outside of U.S. with close to 1700 employees. And as smartphones have brought millions more online, Indians have become some of the most enthusiastic Google users. Using products like Gmail, Translate and Android, India is second only to the U.S. in total number of mobile Search queries.


There are two population superpowers in the world: China and India. China still has slightly more people at 1.4 billion, or 18% of the global population. But India, at 1.36 billion, is right on its tail and growing faster. More importantly, for the global big tech superpowers like Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft a long-time billion dollar investor in India, India is relatively open for business. With more FDIs in India, the business deals with China would hamper and encourage Indian made products through efficient marketing. Data security being the most important aspect for a country, such bold steps of India towards the ban of Chinese Apps would strengthen privacy as well as the economy thereby boosting the economy.