Google’s dominance in the search engine market is borderline terrifying, prompting rivalries with tech heavyweights like Apple, Microsoft, and Yahoo! But according to new numbers from ad network Chitika, Google’s dominance extends right into the backyards of these companies, begging the question: If you can’t grab the market share in your corporate headquarters, where can you go to take a bite out of Google?
Redmond, WA, the Seattle-area home of Microsoft, boasts arguably the biggest potential threat to Google in the Bing decision engine. Launched in early 2009, Bing has made a lot of noise, and a lot of innovations, aimed at making Microsoft a search leader. To their credit, Redmond has the lowest Google usage rate of the four HQ cities at 78.70%. Unsurprisingly, Bing’s usage in Redmond is higher than in the overall numbers, generating 15.94% of all search traffic coming into the Chitika network.
Cupertino, CA, lays claim to Apple’s headquarters. Apple has been engaged in a well-publicized battle with Google over mobile devices, and rumors have even floated that Apple was considering changing the iPhone’s default search engine to Bing. Cupertino, though, has a higher rate of Google usage than any city on this list except for Google’s own hometown of Mountain View. 89.91% of Cupertino search traffic comes from Google.
Sunnyvale, CA, Yahoo!’s stomping grounds, manages to see Yahoo! usage at about twice the rate of the overall Chitika network, coming in at 9.49%. Google still dominates, though, sending 86.04% of all search traffic. Taking their partnership with Bing into account, “Microhoo” makes up 13.27% of the Sunnyvale market.
Mountain View, CA, Googleville. The land of simplicity and blue links sees a 94.29% market share for the home team, with both Yahoo! and Bing coming in with just over 2.5%.
Overall, across the Chitika network, the breakdown is as follows:
| Yahoo | Bing | AOL | Ask | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 88.01% | 5.87% | 4.22% | 0.90% | 1.00% |
It should be noted that for the purposes of this study, Chitika Research was measuring traffic generated by the various search engines, rather than search queries entered.
Raw Percentages:
| Cupertino | Redmond | Sunnyvale | Mountain View | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 89.91% | 78.73% | 86.04% | 94.29% | |
| Yahoo | 5.84% | 4.25% | 9.49% | 2.77% |
| Bing | 3.54% | 15.95% | 3.78% | 2.56% |
| AOL | 0.16% | 0.45% | 0.28% | 0.11% |
| Ask | 0.55% | 0.62% | 0.42% | 0.27% |
Contact:
Daniel Ruby
Research Director, Online Insights
Chitika, Inc.
+866.441.7203 x966
press@chitika.com
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