Pakistan is a $500 Million Market for Google

Pakistan is one of the biggest markets for Google in Asia with a revenue base of $500 million, according to executives of Google who said this in Karachi's Pearl Continental Hotel at a gathering of IT experts, bloggers, businessmen and selected journalists.

The gathering comes after a visit to Islamabad by Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt in June to meet with the country’s politicians and businessmen. “It was just a regular visit. He wanted to find out how important the use of technology for the country’s leadership and businessmen is,” said Badar Khushnood, Google’s consultant in Pakistan.

Google has recently partnered with Punjab government in a project called “Innovation Punjab” and has also launched a social innovation fund – in collaboration with Pakistan Software Houses association to support young entrepreneurs struggling to get their ideas public.

Though Google has no office in Pakistan but the launch isn't ruled out. Pakistan currently has 22 million internet users, which is more than Australia's whole population. Also 4 of the top 10 websites in Pakistan are Google's sites, said Jana Levene from Google. Google may have reservations regarding internet censorship, imposed for the first time in Pakistan and absence of some intellectual property rights and cyber laws before planning to open office in the country.

Fast Facts

• Pakistan has 22 million internet users including 2 million broadband users
• Seven million Pakistani users are on Facebook
• One million on Twitter and 1.2 million on LinkedIn
• 6% of mobile phones sold in Pakistan are smart-phones
• Google Pakistan receive over eight million queries daily
• 386,000 are telecom queries, which translates to 15,000 queries every hour
• Government of Pakistan reached 800,000 people using Google Earth/ Maps tools to track areas affected by 2010 floods.