Google last week snapped up the popular Indian railway app, ‘Where is my Train’ that helps commuters track the estimated arrival and departure of trains, as well as buy seats. The Android app, which claims to have over 10 million registered users, was reportedly bought for around $35 million, nudging out a bid by Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi.
With more than 14,000 trains operating across India on a daily basis, the app which supports eight Indian languages besides English is popular with commuters as it also works offline and even when the connectivity is poor.
Sigmoid Labs, the company that develops the train app, was founded by four former TiVo executives in 2013 and currently has around 10 employees. Announcing the acquisition on its website, Sigmoid Labs said, “We can think of no better place to help us achieve our mission, and we’re excited to join Google to help bring technology and information into more people’s hands.”
For its part, Google said that the Where is my Train team would “continue to build on the current offering,” so it seems that the app will, at least for the moment, not be shut down and moved to some deep recess of the labyrinthian Google ecosystem.
The service’s significant user base would also suggest that Google might look to develop and expand its scope to perhaps touch on other areas, or Google could fold it into other apps, including Google Maps. But all that is pure conjecture, as Google has been tight-lipped about its future plans for the app.
The deal falls under Google’s ‘Next Billion User’ division, which is developing products and services to help increase internet adoption in emerging markets. To date that has focused strongly on India, where Google has developed data-friendly ‘lite’ versions of popular apps like YouTube, and initiatives like public Wi-Fi for India’s rail network, which is used by more than eight million people.
That scope has also covered services, with Google looking at apps that provide information and utility to Indian consumers. Google launched an on-demand app and a mobile payment service last year, and this year it released a neighborhood Q&A service. The Where is my Train deal certainly fits that strategy, and it could probably become a core part of Google’s consumer-facing product line in India.
In the past, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo and even Google have made acquisitions in India, but the acquiring of Where is my train seems significantly more strategic as a product.
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