Bing Gains; Almost Everyone Else Loses

The search engine market share reports are in. Bing’s share increased from 10.7% in December to 11.3% for January.

That’s an 8.5% increase from a year ago.  In contrast, all of the major players lost market share except for Ask.com.

• Google: 65.4% from 65.7% in December.  However, note that Google is up from 63% a year ago.
• Yahoo: 17% from 17.3%.  Also, Yahoo is down from 21% a year ago.
• AOL: 2.5% from 2.6%
• Ask.com: 3.8% from 3.7.

What’s more interesting than the market share gains are the opinions that Microsoft is buying these market share gains.  Henry Blodget at Business Insider estimates that Microsoft bought Bing’s summer market share gains at the rate of rate of “$667 million per point”.

It’s a high price, however, at this pace, Bing will catch and pass Yahoo within a year.

Sources:

• Barron’s: Bing U.S. Search Market Share Hits 11% In January; GOOG, YHOO Drop
• Business Insider: January Search Results In! Bing Keeps Gaining Share, Everyone Else Loses