Google sites accounted for more than two-thirds of 131 billion searches conducted worldwide last month but Microsoft’s Bing is showing the most rapid growth, leading analyst comScore says.
“The global search market continues to grow at an extraordinary rate, with both highly developed and emerging markets contributing to the strong growth worldwide,” said Jack Flanagan, comScore executive vice-president.
“Search is clearly becoming a more ubiquitous behaviour among internet users that drives navigation not only directly from search engines but also within sites and across networks.
“If you equate the advancement of search with the ability of humans to cultivate information, then the world is rapidly becoming a more knowledgeable ecosystem,” Flanagan said.
The total worldwide search market boasted more than 131 billion searches conducted by people age 15 or older from home and work locations in December 2009, representing a 46pc increase in the past year.
This number represents more than 4 billion searches per day, 175 million per hour, and 29 million per minute. The US represented the largest individual search market in the world with 22.7 billion searches, or about 17pc of searches conducted globally.
China ranked second, with 13.3 billion searches, followed by Japan with 9.2 billion and the UK with 6.2 billion.
Among the Top 10 global search markets, Russia posted the highest gains in 2009, growing 92pc to 3.3 billion, followed by France (up 61pc to 5.4 billion) and Brazil (up 53pc to 3.8 billion).
Google sites ranked as the top search property worldwide, with 87.8 billion searches in December, or 66.8pc of the global search market. Google sites achieved a 58pc increase in search query volume over the past year.
Yahoo! sites ranked second globally, with 9.4 billion searches (up 13pc), followed by Chinese search engine Baidu, with 8.5 billion searches (up 7pc).
Microsoft sites saw the greatest gains among the Top 5 properties, growing 70pc to 4.1 billion searches, on the strength of its successful introduction of new search engine Bing.
Russian search engine Yandex also achieved considerable gains, growing 91pc to 1.9 billion searches.
By John Kennedy
