Is Google’s Search Product Still A Monopoly?

This article was written by Pallavi Rao and originally published by Visual Capitalist.

This chart breaks down the average Q4 2024 market share of major search engine operators, including Google, Microsoft Bing, Yahoo!, and Yandex.

Data is sourced from Statcounter as of 2024.

Early Warning Signs for Google Search?

In the last quarter of 2024, Google Search’s worldwide market share dropped below 90%.

This is the first time it’s consistently stayed below 90% since 2015, averaging 89.6% in the last three months of the year.

The reasons behind this drop are not entirely obvious. Industry media outlet Search Engine Land points out that Google’s market share has stayed fairly consistent, except for in Asia where three months of decline seems to have had effect.

Main search rivals, Bing and Yahoo! all gained share in the same time period.

AI is Coming For Search

The source for this graphic, Statcounter, does not measure search metrics for AI models like ChatGPT.

But ChatGPT and Perplexity.ai are coming for internet search. Both AI models offer searching for relevant information with their free versions.

While there’s no big dataset yet on whether users have changed behavior, AI-aficionados aren’t limiting themselves to traditional research or rewriting emails.

They’re also searching for everything from recipes, memes, and fashion inspiration: all of which are traditionally in the purview of Google Search.

And ads are coming to these models as well, with Perplexity announcing their monetization plans in November 2024.

What does this all mean? As it happens, 60% of Google’s revenue comes from search. And though the company has their own AI bot, all these new disruptors are likely to have an effect.