An ex-employee explains top challenges facing Google India –and how to tackle them

 Despite having over 90% smartphone market share in India, Google is lacking a big consumer app in the country. Facebook has WhatsApp (and Messenger), both of which are massive in India, and Google is getting anxious that it could lose out. Google CEO Sundar Pichai made his first official trip to India in mid-December as the company looks to expand in the country. Pichai announced a partnership with the Indian government to bring more of India's 1.2 billion population online. Business Insider spoke to Keval Desai, an ex-Google employee turned investor, about the problems Google is having in one of the fastest growing markets on Earth. (He was keen to stress that his views are not based on inside knowledge, but an understanding of Google's culture and businesses.) Problem 1: India is a mobile-first country Unlike the US or Europe, the majority of internet users' first experiences of technology and the internet are on a mobile device (most likely a smartphone) rather than a PC. "Google has to re-architect its product [and] business model to this new mobile era," Desai said. "Google faces a completely new ecosystem in mobile that is similar to the old PC era of the '80s-'90s and not the web era of 2000s when Google was born." This change is not specific to India but the whole of Google's business and the company has been working hard on creating mobile apps for all platforms while expanding beyond search and advertising, which make up 90% of Google's revenues.