Microsoft Bing managed to steal a small portion of Google’s search market share over the past year in the US, let alone globally. But make no mistake: Google is still the dominant search engine.
That’s despite the launch of the new Bing, powered by ChatGPT designed for search, a year ago, which many believed could ignite a real contender to challenge Google. Instead, the search market remains essentially status quo.
Why we care When Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella unveiled the new Bing on February 7, 2023, he called it “a new day for search.” Now, a year later, it seems more like the same old song and dance. Questions remain about whether generative AI is the game changer, be it Microsoft or Google.
By the numbers. This is the number of search engine referrals over the past year (comparing data for the full month of February 2023 with January 2024), according to StatCounter:
Microsoft Bing US search market share increased to 7.87% from 6.35% (+1.52). Worldwide, Bing’s search market share increased from 2.81% to 3.43% (+0.62).
from Google US search market share decreased, from 88.96% to 87.46% (-1.5). Globally, Google’s search market share decreased from 93.37% to 91.47% (-1.9).
This data indicates that Microsoft Bing and Google traded essentially 1.5 percentage points in the US. Meanwhile, globally, Google lost almost 2 percentage points; however, Microsoft Bing only gained less than a percentage point.
Credit: StatCounter
But. Microsoft once said that stealing 1 percentage point of search can mean an additional $2 billion in search revenue for Microsoft.
It’s hard to know if that revenue actually materialized because Microsoft only reports percentages in its earnings reports. However, Microsoft reported an 8% increase in search and news advertising revenue on January 30, and on the earnings call, Microsoft CFO Amy Hood reported “a volume higher searches”.
In the meantime. Google responded to the new Bing by launching its Search Generative Experience, which remains an experiment in Labs. Google also introduced its Gemini model in December, which is now at Bard, used in SGE, and will soon be incorporated into Google Search.
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