Bing-powered U.S. searches reach 29% in October

By Tom Warren, on 17th Nov 11 8:14 pm with 49 Comments

Bing’s U.S. search share reached 29% in October, according to new statistics released on Wednesday.

Experian Hitwise announced on Wednesday that Microsoft’s decision engine, Bing, reached a high of 29% in terms of all U.S. searches. The figure includes Yahoo’s searches that are powered by Bing. On its own Bing rose 3% from September to reach 13.23% of all U.S. searches. The figures paint a similar picture to comScore’s recent data. ComScore revealed last week that Bing’s U.S. market share remained flat at 14.8%. Yahoo’s market share and Bing’s market share combined reach around 30%.

Microsoft has been trying to place Bing on several platforms. The software giant has pushed two minute video demos of Bing on iPhones, released Bing iPhone games and ensured Bing is making its way to the latest Toyota line of cars. Microsoft also introduced a special Bing for iPad application recently. The constant iteration and product updates also keeps Bing’s competitors on their toes. Microsoft is also introducing anew Xbox Bing voice search in its latest dashboard software, due shortly.

Microsoft recently launched Action Buttons to better surface quick deep links to various search queries. The software giant also introduced an Adaptive Search feature. The feature allows Bing to learn user patterns and provide a new set of search results per used based on previous search queries. The search results work by surfacing information on what Bing thinks an end user is searching for. If a user searches for Australia then they’ll like receive results about the country and travel related content. However, if the user regularly searches for movies then Bing is more likely to provide search results for the movie Australia rather than the country.

Microsoft also announced a renewed Bing search deal with Twitter in September. The deal will see Twitter continue to share its tweets with Bing search results. Bing uses Twitter data for its real time search queries, something that Google had to temporarily disable after failing to establish a new agreement with Twitter.

Bing U.S. searches share October 11

  • Anonymous

    Now that’s why Microsoft shouldn’t dump Bing ;-)

    • Anonymous

      It’s like Ballmer said it, “we’re growing like weed in the search market”.

    • Guest

      A weed? More like a Bonsai tree. A very expensive to maintain Bonsai tree.

    • Anonymous

      It will pay off eventually. Just wait for it.
      Success products don’t always make profit from the first day. Look at the PlayStation 3 at launch ;-)

    • Anonymous

      The fact it is growing at all is something to be proud of.

      Nothing has been able to compete against Google search the way Bing has so far. It’s a breath of fresh air to have an alternative to Google.

    • Guest

      @BadManDuke:disqus 

      Not really. Growth can be bought. Which is exactly what MS has done. And it hasn’t been all that effective if you look over the half decade or more that MS has been competing directly against Google (first with MSN and now with Bing). Share has actually been cut in half over that period, despite Bing’s gains over the last year. And Google has become more dominant in all markets including the US. I disagree that nobody has had more success. Several region players have kicked Google’s ass. Baidu in China, for example. And not just after Google left/returned. And Facebook has been far more successful on a relative basis in growing both their search and advertising share. And they didn’t lose billions doing it. Now, some of MS’s losses can be explained away as trying to be the overall #2. But I just don’t that their current strategy is working. And while it’s nice to have competition in all parts of the markets, MS isn’t a charity.   

    • Guest

      @Jarrichvdv:disqus 

      You mean like Xbox, which is still some $4 billion in the red after 11 years despite the recent profitability?

    • Guest

      @Jarrichvdv:disqus If MS would have taken that same 4 billion and invested it in Apple 11 years ago they would have over $120 billion today it will take MS another 20 years to achieve that number in profit from the product.   

    • Anonymous

      I love how some guests like to make unsubstantiated claims and hide behind the guest veil…

  • http://twitter.com/kid_jenius Daniel Paulino

    i really like bing because of its social integration. and whenever i use google, it just feels like it’s trying to make me use chrome, gmail, google+, google docs and all their other services. im happy with hotmail, skydrive, office webapps, so thanks google, but no thanks.

    • Anonymous

      Hasn’t it already been deployed?  Every now and then you see the HTML5 video in place of the Bing image of the day and  I feel like I have seen some smooth page transitions lately.

    • Anonymous

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jhk-0fpeGGk

      This is HTML5 Bing. The only thing we’v seen already is that HTML5 background every now and then.

  • Anonymous

    Search market saturation with Bing is imminent.

  • Anonymous

    I just got the beta of the xbox dashboard update.  I was excited to try out Bing voice search through Kinect.  I figured it would be a faster way to find movies on Netflix.  But it seems it only works with Zune marketplace for movies and songs.  Has anyone heard whether they will integrate it with Netflix results?  Otherwise I have to admit that Bing suddenly became useless for my xbox, other than finding DLC for a particular game.

    • Anonymous

      Yes, they will. No word as to when, but I would imagine it will be with the next week or 2.

    • Anonymous

      Thank god! Do you have a link to a source though?

    • BadManDuke

      Searching on Netflix through Bing was demonstrated at E3.

    • Anonymous

      @BadManDuke:disqus Thanks!  That’s good to know.  I hope they roll it out soon.

    • Anonymous

      Keep in mind that the apps will need to be updated to take advantage of the new dashboard as well. That being said, remember your NDA. ;-)

    • Anonymous

      NDA?  You mean that thing I agreed to without reading?

    • Guest

      Its enforcement isn’t predicated on whether you read it or not. The mere fact that you agreed to it is sufficient.

    • Anonymous

      @039cd31c5c2aec6c453ce08b35d82fa3:disqus Was trying to make a joke, but thanks.

    • http://twitter.com/laserfloyd Lewis McCrary

      Despite having read the NDA I’ll ahead and say the pink elephants are wonderful.

      (another joke of course ;)

  • Anonymous

    BTW – I watched “Source Code” this week and there was a scene where Jake Gyllenhaal pulled out a phone and did a BING search! That was priceless!

  • Anonymous

    google reminds me of IE. slowly declining because they are too busy competing with companies that beat them to the punch (aka facebook). google needs to return to its mission: search. not social networking.

    • Guest

      IE is declining because MS ignored the product for half a decade and destroyed the brand equity. Also because they stopped supporting other platforms. So now even as they have started making a more competitive product, it’s limited to just Windows and WP. Plus, they do fuck all marketing.

      Google has no choice but to focus on social. It realizes, correctly, that Social has the potential to completely disrupt their business model.

  • Anonymous

    I love msft to the ground, but there is a world outside of the USA, I know it is still the largest economy. But do try to make your efforts more global

    • Guest

      If they can’t win here, where they better understand the market and have a combined 29% including Yahoo, what chance are they going to have outside the US where Google’s share averages 90%+ instead of “just” 65%?

    • Anonymous

      its not just bing though, everything msft does is pro us.

      I cant listen to music on my xbox with the zune pass (since i got the dashboard update which is incredibly annoying, it use to work before and now it suddenly doesn’t) 

      I have zune pass working on my windows phone & laptop because I have a US billing address and card.

      why do I have to work so hard to use there services because i am not in the usa, my god the service is sweet all they need to do is open up to more markets and advertise.

    • Guest

      I agree with that, at least on the consumer side. A lot of it is MS’s fault. Some of it has to do with obscure governmental policies and content provider intransigence. But that doesn’t answer my response to your original point.

  • Anonymous

    they could have 100% market share but theres no use if they are bleeding money.. I love MS but Bing is a joke.. Google wins hands down 

    • Anonymous

      Explain why Bing is a joke. Cites and evidence.

    • AllenSi

      Because of the punchline of 13% market share!

    • AndyD

      lol!

    • Anonymous

      1. Its still beta in a lot of markets
      2. It has far less superior search results compared to Google
      3. it has far less services than what Google is offering .
      4. Its map is substandard.
      5. Local based services are non existent for several countries.
      6. It doesn’t have street view with the exception of a handful us cities.
      7. It doesn’t have a translator. (I know Microsoft has a beta translator but since its not integrated into Bing it doesn’t count) 

      8. It doesn’t  have reverse image search.

      9. It doesn’t have instant search ,vpice search etc

      10. It doesn’t have a single service which doesn’t exits on Google already and even with those services its still inferior to Google .

      I can go on and on but I think you get my point now. Google is not gaining tracroon because MS isn’t offering a real completion to  Google, all what they are doing is to buy marketshare by making deals with Verizon, RIM, AOL etc. Which isnt the way to grow a business.  

    • Martyn Metalous

      “Its still beta in a lot of markets” – So you regularly look at hungarian search results then?

      “far less superior search results” – Completely disagree, I find bing more precise on the things I search on, this is merely an opinion.

      “far less services than what google is offering” – You mean the ones they close down when they realise they dont make money or do you mean shopping.

      “it has far less services” – Like?

      “Its map is substandard” – Would agree its not as good and doesn’t have street view, it does have OS maps and Nokia/3D maps are coming.

      “Local based services” – Hungarian?

      “Translator” – Can’t see an issue here, its a good translator.

      “It doesn’t have instant search” – Thank God!!!! Utter rubbish, unless your running on the internet backbone, most of us use wifi related devices which frankly struggle to keep up with the typing. MS has also said they won’t be implementing it and for good reason. My partner no longer uses Google because of this annoying feature that has to wait for search results to return before she can type the next letter.

      All of these things are so great, they are still losing market share, month on month, year on year…

    • Anonymous

      @Martyn Metalous  
      did you even read what i wrote? and whats witht he constant hugary reference? i don”t live in Hungary.. I hate people who cant take things for what they are.. bing is substandard.. Even Yahoo is better if you ask me.. Microsft is bleeding money just keeping Bing alive.. either they man up and challenge Google head on they close it down.

    • Guest

      I agree with a lot of what you wrote and your central conclusion. There’s really not much in Bing that is disruptive and that’s not a way to win. But keep in mind that their initial focus is the US to start. MS stated that up front and has repeated it many times since. So a few of your criticisms, while valid in non US markets, don’t really apply to their initial target.

    • Anonymous

      @jrtorrents:disqus when was the last time you even tried to use bing.

      1. I won’t even argue that one. Not sure what relevance does it have.

      2. Less superior results that google? Really? Based on what? I suggest you look at scientific evidence that is plentiful on the web at reputable sites that are SME on the topic and see for yourself how far superior or not is google search.

      3. It has far less services than google? What does that even mean? Are you saying that you expect bing to compete with all of google? I don’t get it. Bing as a search engine is on par and in many areas better than google search. The rest of google such as Gmail, Gtalk, Google Voice, etc. are not features of google search but rather mining fields for google search and should not be compared with bing services. If you’re talking about webmaster services such as dashboards and analytics, then I would have to say that google has far better tools but I wouldn’t call them better “services” per se. If you’re talking about features such as being able to submit queries like calculations or conversions etc then I’d have to say that I find the most relevant queries that google supports available on bing as well. I don’t know when was the last time you needed a search engine to tell you the jewish prayer times for example but if that’s what you’re into then hey, google is the search engine for you then!

      4. Maps? Seriously? As far as mapping is concerned, bing maps are far better than google maps as per the latest facelift. The only area where google has a slight advantage in the mapping field is the streetview feature. Microsoft’s streetview equivelent is still way below par and in serious development stage. Otherwise, I’ll take bing maps over google maps any day of the week.

      5. Local based services for many countries such as? Where are you comparing just so that we are aware of the relevance of your claims.

      6. See #4.

      7. I am not sure that I would throw out the whole service simply because it lacks trnaslator. Is it a nice to have feature, sure. Is it a must have, absolutely not. I have yet to run into a situation where I couldn’t get the material I needed because bing lacked a translation engine.

      8. Microsoft labs released image based search in 2004. Now let’s be honest here. How often have you used image based search since it was released? I did use it maybe twice to see how well it works and that’s about it.

      9. Interesting that you are actually knocking bing for not having a feature that google quickly rushed to explain to its users how to turn it off once it released it. Either way, if this is a deal breaker for you, then hey, at least there exists one company that caters to everything you as an individual user desire in a web search engine.

      10.1 It has facebook integration. Not available on google.
      10.2 It has bing rewards. Not available on google.
      10.3 It has bing zune integration. Not available on google.
      10.4 It has HTML5 integration all throughout. Not available on google.
      10.5 It has Live ID integration and Live Services Integration. Not available on google.
      10.6 It has compelling imagery that drives exlporation and search. Not available on google.
      10.7 It has legitimate yelp and other social networks integration. Not available on google (not legally at least).
      10.8 It has integrated real time travel data. Did not exist on google until the acquision of ITA. Still far inferior integration on google also.
      10.9 Far superior image search. Google is still trying to copy bing’s image search capabilities.
      10.10 It has less clutter and no search pollution. You actually get results that are relevant to your context and not ones that are purely driven by ad revenues.

      I can go and on but you’re just an uneducated fool who likes to ramble…

    • Anonymous

      @grs_dev:disqus  are we still talking about Bing or you all talking of Microsoft services in General.. ?Then I could also go into Youtube, gtalk, Google music, Google reader and all that but my main aim was Bing as a search engine and Google as a search engine..  Anything not directly related to search doesnt count.. 

      1. I said its still in Beta because form the part of the world I live and for most parts o the word wtht he exception of UK, Australia and US bing is still in Beta which means you have far less services..  You can only do search for text and images and thats it.. no location based services , no maps etc

      2.  Did you even read the Google revealing that Microsoft has been stealing search results from Google? and Microsoft did not even come to deny it.. their only defense was they used it for something else.

      3. far less services in terms of location’s based services.. Bing has none and I live in Amsterdam which is a pretty popular city .. its the same for most European cites.. there is also no reverse image search , no translator,  and a whole lot that they are missing.. i could go on but I think you no what am saying 

      4. My street doesn’t even exists on Bing but there is a Google street slide on Google.. I dont know how many times I have gotten lost because I decided to use the stupid Bing maps on my wp7 device. 

      You are basing all your argument on what MS but am talking more about Bing so lest stick to that.. facebook integration doesnt come into play here.

      What is Bing rewards.. how much have you won from that ? hahah Please stop being an MS apologist.. Microsoft makes lots of nice sevices which are better than Google.. but Bing is no where near Google.. even MS employees use Google when they are home.. I was once watching a Microsoft research video when the guy presenting said “you could Google this “

    • Anonymous

      @jrtorrents:disqus I was only talking about bing.com. That shows how ill informed you are. Go do your homework kid then come back and try to attempt to have a conversation. Until then you’ve simply admitted that you’re a fool incapable of even reading plain and simple english.

    • Anonymous

      @grs_dev looks like you are a compete idiot..dont have to waste my time on your .. you didnt even read te topic well.. “Bing powered services”.. and btw am not Dutch.. living in the NL doesnt make you Dutch.. I lived in the US, germany, Ukand I know how Bing is in each of these countries.

    • Anonymous

      @jrtorrents:disqus first of all it did not say anything about bing services. The title which is still available on the top of the page says “Bing powered Searches” not services, “searches”.

      I am not going to stoop to your level. I’ve explained to you what you don’t know and you insist that you do know. So if you choose to go back and read and educate yourself that’s great, otherwise there is no helping the unwilling…

  • Anonymous

    This number will skyrocket if IE set bing as the homepage

  • Anonymous

    Told you comScore is full of shit…

  • http://twitter.com/qweed Martini Whoelse

    As a search engine, Bing has a smarter design however Google usually has more relevant top results which are the most important factor for any search engine. If they improve Bing’s relevancy for top 5 results I will have absolutely no reason to use Google.
    I think the only thing Google can monopolize is Youtube because of their partners and subscribers loyal to their partners.
    However, when the first generation of YouTube partners eventually leave there will be an oppurtunity to replace it like Facebook replaced the MySpace.

  • Anonymous

    I’m sorry to say this, but outside the US, Bing is useless.
    Its maps are partial, its searches are incomplete and there is no other services.

    Google is simply better outiside the US, so all that money funneled into the US is lost marketshare in a global scale!!

    • Guest

      “Google is simply better outiside the US, so all that money funneled into the US is lost marketshare in a global scale!!”

      You realize that’s illogical, right? Bing’s main focus to start is the US. That’s where they’re spending the most money. Obviously the service outside the US isn’t as good as a result. Google already enjoys 90% share in most places outside the US. That’s share has already been lost. So money spent in the US isn’t losing share elsewhere. It’s giving them a shot at trying to win initially where Google is statistically weakest: America.      

  • http://www.modernwheels.net/ Modern Wheels Net

    thats cool.