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Google reveals mobile plans
Level 1
Elementary
Key words
1
Find the information
2
Look in the text and find the answers to these questions as quickly as possible.
1. How many companies support Android?
2. How many handsets did Nokia sell in the past three months?
3. When did Google start? 
4. Who started Google?
5. How much is Google worth?
6. Which company launched the iPhone?
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Google reveals mobile plans
Level 1
Elementary
Google reveals mobile plans
Bobbie Johnson, technology correspondent
November, 5 2007
Google is planning to enter the mobile phone 
industry. The company is introducing a new 
mobile system called Android. Google is hoping 
that Android will bring the Internet to millions of 
people – and that it will also help Google to sell 
more advertising. 
Google chief executive, Eric Schmidt, announced 
the news. He said that Android was a software 
set that would make it easier for people to use the 
Internet on their phones. “The main problem with 
handsets today is that they don’t have full power 
Internet browsers – we have to use specialized 
engineering to get Google software on those 
handsets,” he said. “Android will give wireless 
operators and phone manufacturers the ability to 
create new things.”
Google wants to increase the amount of time 
people spend surfing the Internet on their phones. 
This will also make it possible for Google to 
gather information and to display advertisements 
direct to mobile phone users in the same way as 
it does on home computers, said Andy Rubin, 
Google’s director of mobile. “At the moment we 
put advertisements on phones using the web 
browser,” he said. “There’s really no difference 
between browsing on your phone or on a 
computer. This helps Google’s business to grow 
but we don’t have mobile phones powered by 
advertising just yet.” 
Android – which will start appearing on phones next 
year – has support from more than 30 companies, 
including mobile phone networks such as T-Mobile 
and handset makers such as Motorola and South 
Korea’s HTC. Some people thought that Google 
was planning to manufacture its own mobile phones 
in a similar way to Apple’s iPhone.
But Mr Schmidt said Google only planned to offer 
new software for mobile phones – not to make the 
handsets themselves. “It’s very important to say this 
is not a Google Phone,” he said.
Google could make a lot of money by moving into 
the mobile phone market. It will take its position in 
one of the world’s fastest-growing industries. Nokia, 
the mobile phone maker and the market leader, sold 
more than 100m handsets in the last three months, 
and network operators such as Vodafone are some 
of the largest companies in the world.
More information and money is moving online and 
Google is becoming more and more powerful. 
University students Larry Page and Sergey Brin 
started Google in 1998 and it is now worth more 
than $225bn (£108bn), making it the fifth largest 
company in America. Google is able to display 
advertising on its search engine pages and this 
has helped to make it a multibillion-dollar business 
which has now moved ahead of other Internet 
giants including Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL.
Google has a number of plans for future products 
and services, including office software, web 
monitoring and other advertising businesses. It is 
testing a system for monitoring television viewing, 
and last year it bought a radio advertising company 
in order to advertise in different forms of media.
Google is also trying to buy space on the US 
airwaves. This could be bad news for traditional 
phone companies and Internet providers. If Google 
purchases space on the mobile phone spectrum, 
it could provide a series of mobile services directly 
to the public without using the telecommunications 
networks at all.
The news about Android comes days before the 
launch of the Apple iPhone handset in the UK. 
Google says it is not trying to compete directly with 
Apple. Although some Google applications such as 
Internet search and maps are already on the