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Mukhriz (right) with Persaud.

KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 26, 2011): Google Inc, owner of the world’s most popular search engine, has opened an office here as part of its investment in Southeast Asia, increasing its effectiveness in providing its advertising platform, web services and search experience to users, advertisers and partners in Malaysia.

"With 17 million Internet users and household broadband penetration of 55.6%, higher growth is expected here, prompting Google to open an office in the capital," Google Southeast Asia managing director Julian Persaud told a press briefing today. Present was Deputy International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir.

The highly-skilled and multicultural workforce in Malaysia had also fuelled Google’s decision to locate here.

Persaud said Malaysia has a business-friendly environment and the new office was a natural move as Google gets more involved with work in the country.

Kuala Lumpur is Google’s second office in Southeast Asia, after Singapore which opened in 2007.

It is also active in Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand and Pakistan, but does not have a physical presence in these countries.

Google Malaysia’s newly-appointed country manager Sajith Sivanandan said there are tremendous growth opportunities in Malaysia as search volumes have grown with mobile search becoming increasingly popular.

"Over the last few years, Malaysia’s annual search growth has been in the high double digits with 99% of Malaysia mobile searches done on Google," he said, adding that Google’s web browser, Google Chrome, has the highest percentage of usage in Malaysia.

Sajith said it has put strategies in place to spearhead its operations in Kuala Lumpur, one of which is by localising its products for the Malaysian market to connect to the users, advertisers and publishers here.

Another is to leverage the strong domestic online growth where 60% of Malaysians are connected to the Internet. Out of these users, 70% use search engines to seek information and at least 57% of Malaysians have done online transactions at some point in time.

Google will also engage with the Malaysian government and aims to participate in projects under the Economic Transformation Programme, Persaud said. - theSun