Vodafone CEO Warns Mobile Market About Google's Dominance

The Chief Executive Officer of Vodafone, Vittorio Colao, has voiced his concerns over the limited competition in the fast growing mobile phone advertising market, which is currently dominated by search engine giant Google with a massive 80 percent market share. 

Speaking at the World Mobile Congress trade show in the Barcelona, the Vodafone chief said that currently the online mobile advertising market had three major players, namely, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, of which two have also ventured into the mobile phone market as well. He said that the advertising market, although still growing at an impressive rate, was limited to only these three companies. He also added that this kind of near monopoly environment was not healthy for a business to grow in. 

Mr. Vittorio, explaining the implications of such an environment, said in his key-note speech that “I think its important the European Commission and to some extent the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in America, should examine the whole value chain and ensure the rules they put in place really enable competition at all levels.” 

However, he added that users preferred Google to any other search engine and companies themselves prefer Google for obvious reasons, yet he believed that in order to create a healthy business environment, there should be fair competition at all levels.