Google promotes Google Australia head

Two and a half years after he left Fairfax Media to lead Google down under, the search giant's Australian chief Karim Temsamani has been promoted to be Google's head of Global Mobile Sales in its Mountain View headquarters in the US.

Karim Temsamani (Credit: Delimiter)

"From 1 October, Karim will lead the development of Google's mobile ads strategy and build Google's fast-growing mobile business," the company said in a statement late yesterday.

The statement contained a list of Temsamani's accomplishments, stating that he had grown Google's search and display advertising business in Australia, built relationships with agency partners, grown its YouTube operations and established "major partnerships" to provide great content and services for local users.

"Under Karim's leadership, the Google team down under has grown to 400 employees," the statement said. "Google hopes to announce Karim's replacement soon."

Temsamani came to Google in November 2007, bumping out the company's first local employee Kate Vale, who was shifted to be the head of YouTube in Australia. He previously worked for publisher Fairfax Media as group director of the company's general magazines business and commercial director for newspapers.

His promotion comes as Google's interest in the mobile space continues to grow. In Google's statement yesterday, the company noted that 200,000 new devices using its Android mobile operating system were activated each day globally.

In Australia, the Android revolution is also growing, with Optus having recently expressed its strong degree of interest in the platform after launching a plethora of Android devices this year, and Telstra similarly focusing strongly on sales of its flagship HTC Desire device and other handsets.