India-born Sundar Pichai will be the new CEO of Google under a major restructuring at the technology giant, as co-founder Larry Page lauded the IIT alumnus' "progress and dedication" and said it is "time" for him to take over the company's reins. In a surprise and significant re-organisation, Page announced the formation of a new parent company Alphabet Inc which will replace Google as the publicly-traded entity and all shares of Google will automatically convert into the same number of shares of Alphabet, with all of the same rights. Google will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alphabet, which will have Page as CEO and co-founder Sergey Brin as President. (AP)

Sundar Pichai, 43, who was previously in-charge of product and engineering for Google's Internet businesses, will be the CEO of the "slightly slimmed down" Google. He received a B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur and holds an M.S. in Engineering and Materials Science from Stanford University and an MBA from the Wharton School. He had joined Google in 2004 as its vice president of product management, where he led the team working on Google's Chrome browser and operating system. (AP)

In a blog post yesterday, Page lauded Pichai for his work at the company and said he feels "very fortunate" to have someone as "talented" as Pichai to "run the slightly slimmed down Google and this frees up time for me to continue to scale our aspirations". "This new structure will allow us to keep tremendous focus on the extraordinary opportunities we have inside of Google. A key part of this is Sundar Pichai," Page said. Waxing eloquent about Pichai, Page said, "Sundar has been saying the things I would have said (and sometimes better!) for quite some time now, and I've been tremendously enjoying our work together." (AP)

"He has really stepped up since October of last year, when he took on product and engineering responsibility for our Internet businesses. Sergey and I have been super excited about his progress and dedication to the company. And it is clear to us and our board that it is time for Sundar to be CEO of Google," Page said. Pichai joins a gradually growing list of Indian-origin technology and business executives working their way up to head multi-billion dollar worth American giants. (Reuters)

In February last year, Satya Nadella was named Microsoft CEO, becoming the tech giant's only third chief executive after Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates in its 40-year history. PepsiCo's CEO is also India-born Indra Nooyi and MasterCard is headed by Ajay Banga. Last year, New Delhi-born Rajeev Suri was made CEO of phone company Nokia. Anshu Jain was till recently the co-CEO of Deutsche Bank. (AP)

Perhaps to counter concerns over iPhone sales and China, Apple this week released numbers related to the App Store’s growth that demonstrate the very real impact China is having on its app ecosystem and developer community.

The company said that, in July, it had its largest number of transacting customers with over $1.7 billion in billings. In addition, the same month broke records for China, too, which also saw the largest number of transacting customers, Apple said.

To date, the company has paid out $33 billion to App Store developers, it said – $8 billion of which was in 2015 alone. For comparison’s sake, just over a year ago, Apple said it had paid $20 billion to developers.

And despite signs that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to gain visibility in an App Store which today features over 1.5 million mobile applications and games available for download, the growth in new app releases shows no signs of slowing down.

China’s outsized role on the mobile app ecosystem has been on display for some time, of course.

In April, for example, China overtook the U.S. to become the number one source of iOS downloads, according to a report from App Annie. At the time, App Annie noted that China’s App Store downloads had exploded in Q1 2015, growing at a rate of 30 percent year-over-year. The trend was due to a growing install base of iPhone users in the country, a number of whom chose the iPhone thanks to the now-larger screen sizes of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

A preference for a larger screen size came about due to China’s mobile-first nature – in the country, smartphone adoption exceeds PC adoption, meaning that many users carry out their tasks on phones instead of computers.

Apple also played into China’s demand for iPhones by investing in its retail presence in the country. It expanded to 19 stores by April, up from just 8 in October 2013. And Apple has said it’s on track for 40 stores in Greater China by mid-2016.

Meanwhile, by the second quarter of 2015, the earlier download growth in China began to heavily impact iOS revenue, too. During this time, China saw the biggest quarterly sequential gain in revenue share. This, in turn, helped the iOS App Store maintain its revenue lead over Google Play, despite the fact that Google Play downloads in the quarter were approximately 85 percent higher than on the iOS App Store – up from the 70 percent gap seen in Q1.

In other words, Apple’s recent reveal that China had a good July in terms of transacting customers should come as no surprise to industry watchers.

“Apple’s strong monetization growth in July is consistent with the overall trend of iOS as the leading platform for monetization in most markets,” explains Fabien-Pierre Nicolas, VP of Marketing, Communications and Community at App Annie. “China, already the No. 1 iOS market in downloads since March, is leading the charge on the growth side.”

Curious about what sort of apps are contributing heavily to China’s iOS App Store revenue gains?

More recently, it’s been those in the video streaming space, App Annie said in its Q2 report. Those apps, including names like Youku, iQIYI and Tencent Video, saw “explosive” revenue growth in the quarter while also dominating the user rankings of iOS Entertainment apps in China. The apps themselves offer a range of content, from YouTube-like user submissions to movies and popular TV shows, including those from overseas, as well as original programming.

To illustrate the reach and scope of these apps, App Annie noted that iQIYI recently announced 5 million paying subscribers – up 765 percent from last year. Youku said its daily video views passed 900 million, while its consumer revenues from subscriptions and pay-per-view were up 649 percent. (Cord-cutting, after all, is a trend impacting consumers worldwide, not just the U.S.!)

Of course, games remain a popular category in China, too – the largest by downloads and revenue. On that front, a Strategy Analytics report last month noted that 81 percent of the top 100 grossing iPhone apps in China were games. That’s also having a sizable impact on China’s growing App Store revenue.

China is still tops today in terms of downloads, having maintained its top spot in Q2. Now, it’s steadily climbing up the revenue rankings as well. The country ended Q2 in spot No. 3 – just behind the U.S. and Japan.