Google eyes growing internet users in Egypt and region

Google eyes growing internet users in Egypt and region

CAIRO: “We are very excited about the kick start of the internet ecosystem in Egypt,” Wael Fakharany, regional manager North Africa for Google, told Daily News Egypt.

The number of internet users in Egypt has grown by 20 percent since 2004, which is the largest increase throughout the region, the company highlighted in a note.
More broadly, the number of internet users in the MENA region grew by a staggering 1,200 percent between 2000 and 2008.

Nevertheless, Arabic content online attains a mere 1 percent while Arabic speakers represent 5 percent of the world’s population, Fakharany said. There are about 45.9 million users that conduct web searches in Arabic, with that figure set to grow to 82 million by 2013.
To offer its products to the growing number of Arabic online users, Google has set up a team that is mapping out the requirements of the market, Fakharany explained. The company has already rolled out a number of platforms for Arabic speaking users, such as a blog spot, a new search engine as well as a translation service to name a few.

In Fakharany’s estimation, the landscape of the services available will change radically, and the trend “is not stopping.”

When inadequacies of its translations service were raised, as some users have complained about the quality of translations between Arabic and English, Fakharany agreed that it still has a few kinks which Google is currently working on fixing.

In fact, the company is ameliorating the translation platform that works akin to the human brain’s memory by translating chunks of text through understanding context and not just translating a word at a time, he explained.
Once a translation of a phrase has been made correctly, he continued, the translation is registered within a database to be reused in the future when another user makes the same translation request.