Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google had less than 90% of the online search market share for the last three months of 2024.
- The last time that this happened was in the first quarter of 2015.
- The statistics show that Google’s competitors, such as Bing, benefited from the slight trend shift.
Instead of saying we’ll search online for something, we say we’ll Google it. That’s how synonymous the search engine of the US tech giant has become with looking something up online, and this is reflected in Google’s market share. Over 90% of online searches in the last decade were conducted on Google Search, but a surprising trend change suggests that the balance of power might just be starting to shift.
As reported by Search Engine Land, statistics from Statcounter show that Google’s global search market share dropped below 90% for each of the last three months. Specifically, it was 89.34% in October, 89.99% in November, and 89.73% in December.
Over 89% is still a commanding grip on the market, but what’s most interesting about this development is that it’s the first time Google has failed to hold a 90% market share in a three-month period since the first quarter of 2015 — almost exactly 10 years earlier.
While you might assume that ChatGPT snaffled up some of Google’s custom, the statistics indicate that the traditional search engine competitors benefited most from this trend change. The information is limited, but it appears that Bing, Yandex, and Yahoo! all got a slight boost. Bing was second in terms of market share in December, albeit with just under 4% of online searches.
A potential shift in customer focus wouldn’t be great news for Google, although there could be a silver lining. The firm remains embroiled in a long-running and high-profile antitrust case, with the Department of Justice accusing Google of monopolistic behavior. Part of Google’s defense has been to point out that users have a choice and are free to exercise it. These statistics could add alittle extra weight to that argument.
