Google today launched a new service ‘Google SMS’ in India. No No ….  dont suddenly come to a conclusion that it is a service for the prolongly rumoured GPhone or a online service from Google for sending free SMS to Indian mobile phones. ‘Google SMS’ is an attempt from the global internet search giant to expand its search service to Mobile phones, which not necessarily an internet enabled.

Google SMS  service enables users to get local business listings, movie showtimes, weather, facts, dictionary definitions etc via text messages. User has to send the search query as a text message to 54664  and the search results will be then sent to the user as a text message.  For instance, if a user wants the movies details in Chennai, a text message “Movies Chennai” to 54664 will give the movies now running in Chennai Cinemas.

Google SMS has an option to store users location so that he can save time from typing location every time. The service also has an intelligence to determine the user’s location based on the frequently used location in the search queries.

Google tied up with five major mobile service providers in India and the service is  now available on Aircel, Airtel, BPL, BSNL, and Reliance. Surprisingly Vodofone, well known as  Hutch, is not in the list. This service is not free of cost and hence premium charges as mentioned below is applicable depends on the service providers. Google’s share from the premium charges levied is not yet disclosed.

Aircel: Rs. 3.00
Airtel: Rs. 2.00
BPL: Rs. 3.00
BSNL: Rs. 0.80/1.00 (post-paid/pre-paid)
Reliance: Rs. 3.00

As this service mainly targets users who has mobile phones which is not GPRS/Wap enabled, i’m not sure whether they will be ready to spend (80 paise to 3 rs) for local search. Also i didnt find the search results exhaustive and complete, as even Google ’s online local search has to be finetuned.  So this service will take its own time to reach the masses after the initial buzz died down. But as Google has already testing its mobile ads service, if it makes the service free with ads on the search results, it will be a huge hit. I’m sure Google has this option in it its roadmap.

Bottomline:  Huge chance for the service to be hit, if it is available for free