Google’s share of the search market sector dropped to its lowest level in five years during December 2012, figures comiled by Experian have revealed.
Still by far the dominant force, the search giant saw its market share dip to 88 per cent last month, falling below 90 per cent for the second month in a row.
In comparison, the Microsoft Bing search engine’s year-on-year market share increased by 1.15 per cent from 3.84 to 4.99 per cent.
Of course, although this may be a five year market share low for the search engine giant, Google’s huge nine-tenth share of the market shows the sheer size of its dominance over the sector.
“Clearly, Google still maintains a huge competitive edge over the other search engines in the UK market,” said James Murray, Digital Insights Manager at Experian. “There are seven times more searches conducted on Google sites than on all the other search engines combined.”
Microsoft Bing could continue to erode Google’s market share lead due to its widespread device availability and the recent announcement that it was to partner with Facebook for its new Facebook Graph Search tool.
In the weeks leading up to Christmas, Experian saw a huge rise in visits to online retail sites, with 2.8 billion made in the week ending December 29.
This surge in online shopping active also parallels the decline in high-street retailers such as HMV and Blockbusters who both entered administration last week.
What search engine do you prefer to use? Do you think Google’s market share dip is just a passing phase or the beginning of the search engine giant’s downfall? Give us your thoughts on our Facebook and Twitter pages or via the comment boxes below.
Via: V3
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
