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Google wants a place in Japan's pockets

Mobile ambitions for Google extend across the Pacific as news of the company making a deal with NTT DoCoMo gives it a place on the country's biggest wireless service.

Google's email and search could be in the hip pocket of a majority of phone-carrying people in Japan, as the nation's top mobile carrier disclosed it was in talks with the search ad company for these services.

DoCoMo's i-mode network carries a variety of services for its customers, who enjoy a broader selection and faster connections than their counterparts in the United States. Google wants to capitalize on DoCoMo's dedicated userbase by making it easier for them to get to Google-branded products.

Progress and negotiations will take some time. A Reuters report indicated no sense of urgency on DoCoMo's part.

"We are currently studying the possibility of an alliance in search services with domestic or overseas partners, but nothing has been decided yet," DoCoMo spokesman Hiroto Nakagawa said in the report.

Google has an existing relationship with another Japanese carrier, KDDI. Like DoCoMo, KDDI signed on to Google's Android initiative to create applications for Google's mobile platform.

The Google deal could help DoCoMo keep its lead over KDDI and Softbank, as the two smaller companies grab market share with aggressive pricing deals.

Japan has nearly 100 million mobile phone users, making its appeal to Google obvious. Broader placement of Google on mobile devices will also help the company against Yahoo Japan, which dominates the traditional PC browser landscape for search there.