PARIS (Reuters) - Google France plans to increase its staff from 700 to 1,000 in 2018 and to double its office space in the country, as it sees room for growth coming from development of e-commerce, its head told French news daily Les Echos in an interview.
"By the end of next year, we will increase staff from 700 to 1,000, mainly engineers and we will double the size of our offices from 10,000 to 20,000 square meters," Sebastien Missoffe, head of Google France said in an interview.
Missoffe said France was still behind in terms of digitalization, given that only 16 percent of companies have embarked on e-commerce.
"It (France) will need to catch up and that's an opportunity for Google," Missoffe said, adding Google could help companies better use the Internet's potential to optimize their exports.
Alphabet Inc's Google has unveiled the second generation of its Pixel smartphone along with new voice-enabled home speakers, redoubling its commitment to the hardware business as it competes with a surge of devices from Apple Inc and Amazon.com Inc.
Missoffe said that over time Pixel smartphones will be sold in France.
(Reporting by Maya Nikolaeva; editing by John Irish and David Evans)
