Google Going Places: Now In Over 100 Countries
Google Places is now in more than 100 countries globally. That now includes 30 countries in Asia, according to the Google LatLong blog: South Asia (Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Maldives), Southeast Asia (Macau, Cambodia, Myanmar, Brunei, Laos), Western Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan), North Asia (Nepal, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Mongolia), and the Pacific (Fiji, French […]
Google Places is now in more than 100 countries globally. That now includes 30 countries in Asia, according to the Google LatLong blog:
South Asia (Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Maldives), Southeast Asia (Macau, Cambodia, Myanmar, Brunei, Laos), Western Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan), North Asia (Nepal, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Mongolia), and the Pacific (Fiji, French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Guam, Papua New Guinea, Northern Mariana Islands, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Samoa, American Samoa and Palau)
Places has a dual identity; it’s both both a consumer product (search + mobile) and a local marketing platform, as you know. Accordingly the Google blog post encourages local merchants throughout Asia to claim their listings and be found.
I’ve seen it estimated (without credible sourcing) that there may be as many as 100 to 150 million “small businesses” throughout the globe at any one time. It’s not clear whether Google is going to bring its Tags product to the global market. But let’s assume so.
Speaking hypothetically, if Google were successful in getting 10 million small businesses around the world to buy Tags on an annual basis ($300 at current pricing) that alone would translate into an additional $3 billion dollars in revenue. There are officially more than 20 million “firms” in the US; however the “addressable” market of small businesses for Google is probably fewer than 10 million.
Beyond Tags, Google’s recently launched Boost product may bring a new group of local merchants into bona fide search marketing. Many local merchants currently stay away from self-service paid search because of perceived complexity. However there’s a healthy ecosystem of third parties reselling Google and Bing traffic to the local market.
Google’s promotion of Places is clearly global and intended to reach billions of consumers and millions of local business owners as well.
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