Microsoft’s decision engine Bing’s monthly market share in the US and globally has fallen for the first time since its launch, according to analysis conducted by StatCounter.
The firm’s research arm, StatCounter Global Stats, finds that Bing’s share of the US search market in September fell by more than one percentage point to 8.51pc from 9.64pc in August.
There was little consolation for Microsoft from the performance of its new partner, Yahoo!, which also declined, to 9.40pc from 10.50pc.
“The trend has been downwards for Bing since mid August,” commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter. “The wheels haven’t fallen off but the underlying trend must be a little worrying for Microsoft.”
Google was the beneficiary from the decline of its main rival, increasing by more than two percentage points to 80.08pc in September from 77.83pc the previous month.
Globally, Bing also declined slightly to 3.25pc from 3.58pc – a trend mirrored by Yahoo!, which fell to 4.37pc from 4.84pc. Google breached the 90-pc mark to 90.54pc – similar to its global market share a year previously (90.53pc).
Data is based on an analysis of 4.6 billion search-engine referring clicks (1.1 billion from the US) which were collected during the period of September 2008 to September 2009 from the StatCounter network of more than 3 million websites.
By John Kennedy
Photo: Bing’s homepage.
