Google aims to double mobile Web speeds

Arvind Jain, the engineering director at Google, is performing continual monitoring of the access rates of various mobile commerce Web sites and is striving to find new ways to achieve better speeds, Mobile Commerce Press writes.

The goal that Jain is pursuing is to make it possible for Web sites to load using mobile devices in twice the speed that is currently being experienced. In the US, the average load time is about 9.2 seconds.

This particular goal is only one element of an overall improvement initiative at Google, which is hoping to significantly broaden the opportunity for mobile commerce and advertising, which could be worth billions of dollars - if only the pages could be accessed more quickly.

Long delays can cause consumers to give up on purchases altogether, and the risk is more acute on mobile phones, The Salt Lake Tribune writes.

Twice as many mobile phone users abandon Web sites for reasons such as sluggishness than their desktop counterparts. The result: lost revenue for online sellers.

To fix the problem, Google is tweaking its mobile browser and working to change the way basic Internet technologies work.

Faster mobile Web loads could increase mobile commerce sales in the US by 10%, or about $600 million a year, says Sucharita Mulpuru, an analyst at Forrester.