Wednesday 9th December 2015

StatCounter analysis highlights difficulty in challenging Google's search share in US and worldwide

Analysis follows Yahoo announcement of reverse spin off

San Francisco, CA & Dublin, Ireland; Wednesday, 9th December 2015: Yahoo's share of search referrals in the US fell from 7.6% in July 2012, when Marissa Mayer was appointed president and CEO, to 7.4% last month (November), according to data from independent website analytics provider, StatCounter. The analysis comes following Yahoo's announcement Wednesday of a reverse spin off plan.

StatCounter's research arm, StatCounter Global Stats finds that Yahoo's US share fell by 2.6% since July 2012. (Note: analysis covers all platforms including desktop, mobile, tablet and console). Yahoo peaked in the US at 10.2% in January 2015 after Mozilla made it the default search engine for Firefox 34 users.

Between July 2012 and November 2015 Bing also fell, from 8.25% to 7.82% in the US, a loss of 5.2%. Google increased its US share by 1.3% from 82.4% to 83.5%.

US graph: https://gs.statcounter.com/#all-search_engine-US-monthly-201207-201511

"Despite Bing's integration with Windows 10 and Yahoo's partnership with Firefox* it is proving difficult for anyone to challenge Google's lead in search share," commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter.

This is borne out by Google's worldwide search share. StatCounter reports that in November 2015 Google held 91.5%, little changed from 91.75% in July 2012.

Worldwide Yahoo is at 2.96% compared to 2.86% at the time of Marissa Mayer's appointment. During the same time, Bing fell from 2.96% to 2.82%.

Worldwide graph: https://gs.statcounter.com/#all-search_engine-ww-monthly-201207-201511

In the UK Yahoo is currently on 3.37%, up from 2.26% in July 2012. Bing is on 4.99% from 4.02%. Google is on 90.86% from 92% over the same time period.

UK graph: https://gs.statcounter.com/#all-search_engine-GB-monthly-201207-201511

StatCounter's (www.statcounter.com) core business is to provide companies, agencies, bloggers, self-employed and charities with the data to measure activity on their website, blog or forum. Key features include a free option, ease of use, independence and ability to view individual visitors in real time.

StatCounter Global Stats data is based on over 15 billion page views per month to over three million websites. Further information: https://gs.statcounter.com/faq

Ends

*The release https://gs.statcounter.com/press/yahoo-growth-stalls excluded mobile usage from its stats as Firefox impact on mobile was statistically irrelevant.

For interview with Aodhan Cullen, photo or press queries:
Ronnie Simpson, Simpson Consulting PR
E:ronnie@simpsonconsulting.ie Mobile: +353 86 855 9410