Although the service is already available in the US, from today, British, French German and Spanish mobile phone users will be able to access Google’s news and email services using their handsets and personalise their own mobile version of the search engine’s homepage, as the American company pushes ever further into the mobile market.

The mobile version provides news categories in the same way the online version does.

Google has said that the resulting pages will only be from sources whose content has been designed specifically for viewing on a mobile phone.

To access email, users can visit gmail.com through the web browser on their mobile and sign in to their gmail account as they would on the web.

The service allows users to view attachments and reply-by-call to people whose phone number is stored in their gmail account.

From the mobile homepage, those who have already set up a personalised homepage on their computer can click the appropriate link, and sign in with their Google account username and password.

The next time they visit Google on their phone, they will automatically see the same customised content modules that are featured on their web version.

Users without an account or personalised Google homepage on their PC will need to create one before using the service on their mobiles the company said.

Google has become increasingly excited about the internet on mobile phones as it sees growth in mobile handset sales far outstripping the growth in sales of computers.

Deep Nishar, Google’s head of mobile products, said:

“There are roughly twice the number of mobile devices in the world as there are PCs and the number of mobile devices is growing faster than PCs. In many emerging markets the only way that people are able to access the world’s information is through mobile phones.”

Mr Nishar denied that offering Gmail, Google News and a personalised Google homepage regardless of which mobile network a customer uses, is an attempt to further sideline the mobile phone companies.

Google has partnerships in the mobile space with several operators including T-Mobile and Vodafone and handset makers such as Motorola and SonyEricsson. “We think this actually enhances our relationship with operators and device manufacturers,” he said. “Because it gives consumers yet another reason to consume mobile data services.”