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According to stats from Nielsen Mobile, search giant Google has managed to dominate the online mobile search market in the first quarter of 2008. Google succeeded in topping the list by capturing 61% of the Mobile Search Market followed by Yahoo and Microsoft with 18% and 5% respectively. However, the desktop results are slightly different as they are visible below.
Earlier this year, Google reported that the increase in number of mobile searches coming from iPhone increased 50 times than any other handset. Google is set as a default search engine on all iPhones whereas Yahoo is presented as a secondary option. iPhone doesn’t allow any of Microsoft’s search product to be set as its default (though users can navigate manually). Services provided by Google Mobile includes Search, Maps, Gmail, SMS, YouTube and GOOG-411.
Out of 40 million active mobile web users in the US, 9 million used their mobiles to make purchases. 5 million users visited auction and shopping websites like Amazon, eBay, etc. in April 2008 alone which is 73% higher than last year’s April.
The report also shows the increase in number of users shopping through text messaging which is already 6.5 million. Mobile is certainly asserting itself to be the next leading edge for retailers and online businesses. Mobile can certainly affect business in a positive manner and in the coming days it will prove very crucial.
An interesting fact about Microsoft’s search options i.e. MSN & Live Search, is that it couldn’t even make it to the top three, despite the fact that it appears as home screen option in Windows Mobile 6. Opera Mini which has Yahoo as a default search engine can also be installed in WM6 by the owners. Opera Mini is considered to be a popular browser among users of WM6 and BlackBerry. Another service that couldn’t perform well is ask.com but their reason of being not so popular is understandable as they don’t appear on any phones as default search engine.
Mainly the market was dominated by Google and Yahoo. Both of their users still feel that there is a lot of room for improvement. Majority of mobile search on both search engines were general information while 29% of Google and 24% of Yahoo users looked for local listings. I believe that the demand for local listings will increase in the US market and whoever will target it, will rise in the Mobile Search Market listings but that doesn’t means that they should loose their focus from main search. All they should do is to improve their search with other features like this one.
