Google Takes U.S. Share From Yahoo In July; Baidu Now Third Largest Search Engine In The World (ComScore)

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Google Takes U.S. Share From Yahoo In July; Baidu Now Third Largest Search Engine In The World (ComScore)

from TechCrunch by Erick Schonfeld

Google keeps gaining search market share in the U.S., but its global dominance is not as great as previously indicated.  Last night, comScore released its search market share and query growth numbers for July and Lehman Brothers reported the numbers in a note this morning.

Here are the main search market share percentage numbers in the U.S. from comScore:

Company—–July search share—Change from June, 2008

Google:                    61.9                           +0.4

Yahoo:                     20.5                            -0.4

AOL:                          4.5                           +0.2

Microsoft:                  8.9                          -0.3

Ask:                           4.2                           +0.1

According to the latest search query and market share numbers from comScore for July, Google’s U.S. market share inched upward to 61.9 percent (from 61.5 percent in June).  While Google gained 0.4 percentage points in market share inJuly, yahoo lost the same amount.

And its search query volume in the U.S. held steady at a healthy 33.2 percent year-over-year rate (and accelreated slightly to 11.7 percent on a quarter-over-quarter basis).  That quarter-over-quarter rate is what caused investor concern earlier this year, when it troughed at -0.3 percent in February.  Since then it has re-accelerated every month to 4.4 percent in March, 6.1 percent in April, 9.9 percent in May, 10.0 percent in June, and now 11.7 percent in July.

Woldwide, Google’s search share declined from 67.9 percent in June to 64.1 percent in July. This drop was largely due changes in the way comScore measures search and Web traffic in China, Brazil, and Russia.  As a result, Baidu’s global search market share went from 7.7 percent in June to 12.9 percent in July (based almost entirely on its strength in China alone).  That makes Baidu the third largest search engine the world after Yahoo.

What the recalculation highlights is that Google faces more challenges to its dominance abroad than in the U.S.  Baidu’s global quarter-over-quarter search query volume grew 98 percent in July, compared to 3.2 percent global growth for Google.

Ed: 

• USA and Western Europe represent 10% of global population. Developing nations account for 90%. If Comscore adds India and Indonesia to the study mix, Google's share erosion could be worse.
  
• USA search growth is 33% yoy. Revenue is 38% yoy, but mostly from international growth. Volume growth of search hides reduced CTR from Nov 2007 click policy change.