By Eric Auchard
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -
Google Inc's share of the global
Web search market dipped in February from January, even as its
U.S. share rose, Internet financial analysts said on Wednesday,
citing market research data.
The data from comScore showed Google's dominance of the
worldwide market for Web search dipping to 62.8 percent in
February from 63.1 percent the month before, according to an
analyst, who declined to be named.
Analysts view the monthly comScore search market data as an
indicator on growth trends in Web search. Several recent
monthly reports have sparked debate on Wall Street over whether
the market is maturing, even though year-to-year growth rates
remain high.
The volume of U.S. searches done through Google dropped to
5.86 billion from 6.14 billion in February, and the worldwide
volume of searches also declined, comScore said on Wednesday.
"We are continuing to see deceleration in growth in Web
search," said Jefferies & Co analyst Youssef Squali. "Google's
month-over-month 5 percent decline is a little surprising, but
all of the major Web search names were down."
The drop was partly due to February being two days shorter
than January, a comScore spokesman said. However, several
analysts said it may also reflect a maturing market. By
contrast, searches rose 9 percent in January over December.
Amid a steep decline in the broader market, Google shares
closed off $7.16, or 1.6 percent, to $432, while Yahoo Inc fell
59 cents, or 2.1 percent to $27.07. The Nasdaq Composite index
slid 2.6 percent.
Investors cull comScore's monthly search data for clues to
growth trends in Google's core business of online advertising
tied to such Web searches, and to watch if any rivals slow the
Google juggernaut. ComScore released summary data on U.S.
search market trends, but worldwide data is only available to
paid subscribers.
With search statistics becoming more unpredictable month to
month, investors have begun to focus on how well Google is
converting Web searches into ad viewership.
Data on growth in "paid clicks," or the number of Web
search ads viewed in February, are expected to be released by
comScore to clients later this week or early next week.
According to comScore data, Google's U.S. share among the
top five Web search providers grew to 59.2 percent in February
from 58.5 percent in January. Yahoo Inc's U.S. share dipped to
21.6 percent from 22.2 percent.
Microsoft Corp, rated No. 3 in U.S. Web search, slipped to
a 9.6 percent share in February from 9.8 percent in January.
No. 4 AOL, a unit of Time Warner Inc, and No. 5 Ask, a unit
of IAC InterActiveCorp, held steady at 4.9 percent each.
Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney, in a research note, blamed
Google's decelerating growth in recent months on the maturing
computer-based Web search market.
"Google's U.S. query growth of 26 percent marked a
deceleration versus 37 percent growth in January and 40 percent
growth in Q4," Mahaney said.
ComScore, which tracks online audiences in 20 major
Internet markets around the world, estimated Web surfers
performed 66 billion searches overall in December, 71.9 billion
in January and 67.4 billion in February.
Google's 62.8 percent market share of the worldwide market
compared with 58.5 percent in February 2007, according to a
reading of comScore data by the unidentified analyst.
Similarly, Yahoo's global share dropped to 11.9 percent from
12.2 percent in February from January.
Chinese Internet search leader Baidu Inc slipped to 4.5
percent in February globally from 4.6 percent in January, while
Microsoft's share was steady at 3.1 percent, the analyst said,
citing comScore data.
(Reporting by Eric Auchard; Editing by Gerald E.
McCormick/Jeffrey Benkoe)
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