Google: Mobile searches surpass desktop searches worldwide

Andy Rubin Conversation With Guy Kawasaki - 2013 SXSW Music, Film + Interactive Festival
AUSTIN, TX - MARCH 10: Amit Singhal, SVP and software engineer at Google Inc. speaks onstage at the Andy Rubin conversation with Guy Kawasaki during the 2013 SXSW Music, Film + Interactive Festival at Austin Convention Center on March 10, 2013 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Amy E. Price/Getty Images for SXSW)
Amy E. Price

This summer, mobile reached a milestone: more Google searches worldwide were conducted on mobile devices than personal computers for the first time. The news, which Google’s head of the search Amit Singhal announced on Thursday, marks an important crossroads for the way that people access the internet, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The user shift to mobile phones instead of personal computers forces companies to evolve, creating ads and interfaces that are more appropriate for smaller screens. “Search as we think about it is fundamentally how you will interact with computing,” Singhal said at the Recode Mobile conference Thursday. “Computing may live in a 4-to-6-inch device, it may live in a desktop, it may live on a 1-inch round device.”

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