Mobile will probably be FT’s dominant channel, says Grimshaw

The Financial Times is turning its attention to the development of Google’s Android operating system as the next phase of its mobile development.

In the coming weeks FT.com’s Honeycomb app will be launched for Android-enabled mobile devices to take advantage of the launch of a series of new tablet formats this year that will run the system.

The launch comes as FT.com managing director Rob Grimshaw admits that mobile will probably become his paper’s dominant method of connecting with readers and that Android is quickly becoming a leading platform.

In an interview with The Independent to mark ten years of the FT charging for online content, Grimshaw said: ‘The mobile transformation could easily be larger in scale than the shift from print to desktop and it could happen at frightening pace.”

Grimshaw told the Indy a recent survey of 2,500 FT registered users found that 45 per cent were accessing content via mobile devices.

“The numbers were much bigger than any of us expected,” he said. “You can only come to the conclusion that mobile will probably become the dominant channel.”