Technology

Visualizing Google’s Search Engine Market Share

Published

9 months ago

September 12, 2023

Marcus Lu

Graphics/Design:

Sam Parker

Google Search Engine Market Share

Visualizing Google’s Search Engine Dominance

Google is ubiquitous in the daily lives of billions of people around the world, with leading positions in online search, maps, and other services.

In fact, Google’s dominance is so far-reaching, it has led the U.S. Justice Department to launch a civil antitrust lawsuit for what it believes are examples of anticompetitive and exclusionary conduct.

This graphic, which uses data from Similarweb, shows the scale of Google’s lead over major search engine competitors like Bing and Yahoo.

Global Search Engine Market Share

The data we used to create this graphic is provided in the table below. It is global search engine market share as of June 2023, across all platforms (desktop, mobile, and tablet).

Note that this analysis does not include China, where Google and other American tech firms are currently banned, or Russia, where Google has ceased operations.

Search Engine	Global Market Share (%)
Google	90.7%
Bing	3.2%
Yahoo	3.2%
Other	2.9%

The largest player included in “Other” is South Korea’s Naver (0.48% global market share), which is similar to Google in that it offers a plethora of online services like search, video, and mobile payments.

Google Prepares for its U.S. Lawsuit

In January 2023, the U.S. Justice Department announced a civil antitrust lawsuit against Google for monopolizing digital advertising technologies.

Today’s complaint alleges that Google has used anticompetitive, exclusionary, and unlawful conduct to eliminate or severely diminish any threat to its dominance over digital advertising technologies
Merrick B. Garland, Attorney General

The Justice Department originally made several antitrust arguments. Potential actions that were deemed red flags include setting Google as a default mobile browser on Android phones, designing search results to disadvantage competitors, and the company’s ongoing partnership with Apple for its Safari browser. That said, some of the less substantial claims have since been dismissed by Judge Amit Mehta.

Google’s court case will begin in mid-September, marking the biggest tech monopoly trial since United States v. Microsoft Corp in 2001. Google is expected to argue that it simply offers a superior product.

Can Bing Challenge Google on Home Turf?

To answer this question, let’s look at U.S. market share over the past 12 months ending June 2023.

From this chart we can see that Bing maintains a slightly higher 5.5% U.S. market share (versus 3.2% globally).

The biggest takeaway from this chart, though, is that Bing does not appear to have gained any traction in 2023, even after releasing its latest AI-powered version in February.

The new Bing is the result of Microsoft’s $10 billion investment into OpenAI at the beginning of 2023, which allows the tech giant to incorporate the immensely popular GPT-4 into its various products and services.

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Technology

Visualizing the Top Countries, by Mobile Data Usage

Today, mobile data usage is rising rapidly around the world. Here are the top 10 countries with the highest mobile data consumption overall.

Published

6 hours ago

June 2, 2024

Dorothy Neufeld

This bar chart shows the countries that use the most mobile data globally.

Visualizing the Top Countries, by Mobile Data Usage

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Global mobile data traffic per smartphone is forecast to hit 42 gigabytes per month by 2027—a staggering 16-fold increase compared to 2017.

This surge coincides with a rising number of internet users worldwide, in particular among middle-income countries. Notably, between 2018 and 2022, India saw a 170% increase in internet users alone.

The above graphic shows the countries with the highest mobile data usage around the world, based on data from the World Bank’s Digital Progress and Trends Report.

Which Countries Use the Most Mobile Data?

Here are the top 10 countries worldwide based on their monthly mobile data consumption:

Rank	Country	Monthly Mobile Data Usage per Capita (Gigabytes, GB)
1	🇨🇼 Curaçao	131.3
2	🇰🇼 Kuwait	83.9
3	🇸🇷 Suriname	72.7
4	🇫🇮 Finland	59.1
5	🇱🇻 Latvia	52.7
6	🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia	44.2
7	🇪🇪 Estonia	42.4
8	🇧🇭 Bahrain	41.6
9	🇦🇹 Austria	35.1
10	🇱🇹 Lithuania	32.1

Data as of 2022.

The island nation of Curaçao ranks first overall, with 131.3 gigabytes of monthly mobile data usage per capita.

With a population of just 193,000, Curaçao surpasses all other nations likely due to a combination of factors. This includes an influx of over one million tourist arrivals in 2022, competitive mobile data plans, and a low penetration of fixed-line telecommunication systems and broadband internet.

For instance, in 2021, just 28 out of 100 people used fixed-line networks, while 88 out of 100 people used cellular-mobile services. Furthermore, the country boasts among the fastest and most reliable internet connections in the Caribbean thanks to its concentration of data centers and fiber optic cable infrastructure.

Following in second place is oil-rich Kuwait. In recent years, the country’s telecom industry has significantly improved, with 5G networks reaching roughly 97% of the population. Furthermore, the Kuwait government invested heavily in mobile platforms that allow people to settle traffic fines or schedule court dates via mobile apps.

Like Kuwait, Middle Eastern nations of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain rank highly on this list.

Top European Countries

As a country known for its advanced telecommunications infrastructure, Finland leads Europe in mobile data usage.

In fact, the country launched the first 6G test network worldwide. Given its role as a leader in communications networks and digital technologies, many companies use Finland to test new products and services before launching globally.

Joining Finland from Europe in this list are Latvia, Estonia, Austria, and Lithuania.

By contrast, the U.S. ranks in #34 overall in monthly mobile data consumption, at 13.4 gigabytes per capita. Part of the reason behind low usage may be that the cost of mobile data in America is among the highest in the world. For perspective, the average cost of one gigabyte of data in America was $6.00 in 2023, a steep jump from $0.20 in France or $3.48 in Japan.