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March 18, 2008

The Web in Charts—Google vs. Microsoft-Yahoo vs. China

Erick Schonfeld

58 comments »

Today more than ever, the Web is a global game. Below are charts from a new State of the Internet report from comScore that paints a picture of global competition on the Web.

In 1996, two thirds of all people online (66 percent) lived in the U.S. By last October, that had completely flipped, with 77 percent of the online population living in the rest of the world and only 23 percent in the U.S. The U.S. still has the largest total number of Web surfers (162 million a month), but China is catching up fast (with 96 million):

comscore-dw-country.png

In China, homegrown sites such as TenCent, Baidu and Sina all reach more native Web surfers than Microsoft, Google, or Yahoo. In fact, the leading Websites in many big markets such as Russia, Japan, and South Korea tend to be homegrown as well:

comscore-global-leaders.png

Social networks are the fastest-growing category of sites (nearly 60 percent annually), but they still lag in terms of penetration (less than 40 percent) behind photo sites, entertainment sites, search, and portals. The fastest growing of all social networks, of course, has been Facebook, which jumped from the second pack to where it is now running neck-and-neck with MySpace:

comscore-dw-social-networks.png

Drilling down into search, Google still dominates with 62 percent share worldwide. And it dominates search even more in other countries than it does in the U.S., where it only commands a 53 percent market share (compared to above 90 percent in parts of Europe and Latin America):

comscore-search-countries.png

Looking at the efficiency of its search ads, Google puts up an ad against only about half of its searches, whereas Yahoo puts up an ad 75 percent of the time. Yet for those searches where an ad is shown, Google gets 0.24 paid click per search compared to 0.18 for Yahoo and 0.14 for Microsoft. (Search advertising on AOL and Ask are also powered by Google and they show the same or better clickthrough rates).

comscore-paid-clicks.png

For display ads, Yahoo and MySpace control the most market share, with 19 and 15 percent each, respectively. (Microsoft comes in a distant third with 6.6 percent):

comscore-ad-share.png

The report also gives an estimate of the unduplicated reach of Microsoft and Yahoo. A combined Microsoft-Yahoo would have 173 million unique visitors a month across the globe, a 10 percent share of all page views, 32 percent share of search, and 24 percent share of display ads:

comscore-yhoomsft.png

Both Microsoft and Yahoo each have about 260 million Webmail users (with duplication), with Google’s Gmail bringing up third place with 87 million (no wonder Google execs keep bringing up market concentration concerns in relation to mail and instant messaging).

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 at 3:43 am and is filed under Company & Product Profiles, Web 2.0 News & Ideas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Comments

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  1. CHINA.NET

    March 18th, 2008 at 4:00 am

    Nice summary and good points; makes much better global sense with China in picture.

  2. Yakov

    March 18th, 2008 at 4:04 am

    Data from October 2007 is quite old since Russia, China and some other emerging markers are growing fast

  3. 113.com

    March 18th, 2008 at 4:05 am

    According to some latest news –

    Mainland overtakes US as top Web market

    Reuters in Shanghai
    6:38pm, Mar 13, 2008

    The mainland had surpassed the United States to become the world’s largest internet market by number of users, a research firm said on Thursday.

    The estimate by Beijing-based BDA was based on data from China Internet Network Information Centre which indicated that the country’s internet user tally was 210 million at the end of last year.

    Nielsen-NetRatings put the United States Web population at 216 million for the same period, BDA said.

    “Based on these sources and the assumption that these markets have continued to grow this year to date at the same rates that they grew last year, we can conclude that China has by now comfortably surpassed the United States as the world’s largest Internet population,” analyst Bin Liu said in a statement.

    BDA added that it expected e-commerce to become the next boom sector in the mainland, as businesses took advantage of the mass market of consumers already online.

  4. open for business

    March 18th, 2008 at 4:09 am

    I need to learn Chinese

    Does this mean Google is blocked in China?

    Or that Baidu is better

  5. 113.com

    March 18th, 2008 at 4:14 am

    It means AOL has to try harder… :-)

  6. shams

    March 18th, 2008 at 4:16 am

    Wowww Erick. big research :-) . Glad to know that Facebook is doing better than MySpace.

  7. YDrive

    March 18th, 2008 at 4:22 am

    According to that graph, Facebook certainly catching up fast and impressively.. :P

  8. Peter

    March 18th, 2008 at 4:26 am

    Very nice summary, Erick. Thanks!

  9. ViralKing

    March 18th, 2008 at 4:59 am

    Good job Eric and an interesting read :P

  10. Jens

    March 18th, 2008 at 5:04 am

    Erick,

    Nice free summary of a $5000 report! Is there any mentioning of how Comscore compiled the data outside of the US? Are there multiple data sources and how were they integrated?

    Thanks,
    Jens

  11. Rajeev

    March 18th, 2008 at 5:05 am

    Really useful Info.

    http://tekno-world.blogspot.com

  12. Frank Church

    March 18th, 2008 at 5:11 am

    Don’t forget that many in China and elsewhere in the East are accessing the web at internet cafes and are not nearly as “monetizeable” as those in the West.

    Why do we in the US do our manufacturing in China? Because you can pay a few $ per day. If one is making a few $ per day, how much discretionary income does one have? Not much.

    Did you all forget that the point of determining the size of a market is to discern how much $ can be made?

    I’d take the 23% from the US any day…

  13. Jason

    March 18th, 2008 at 5:29 am

    China, Japan, Korea have Chinese stroke character systems that make Google some trouble to dominate like in other countries.

  14. 113.com

    March 18th, 2008 at 5:36 am

    @12 - however, the cost of living for them is much much lower than in the US…

  15. open for business

    March 18th, 2008 at 5:48 am

    Yeah sounds like an localization issue

    Like where you have to build a product based on actual demand of local culture in their own language. This would enhance user experience and most likely lead to higher rate of adoption and traffic.

    In other words one size does not fit all

    Man they are eating our lunch

  16. Frank Church

    March 18th, 2008 at 6:03 am

    @14, You are missing the point completely. Please do not get emotional, use logic.

    P&G or any other large marketer wants a consumer that can spend money, period.
    If you can’t drop 5-10$ on an item, they don’t want to advertise.

    Just because the % of savings is equal to or greater than the US doesn’t mean anything. The CPC scales down in proportion.

    Get it?

  17. My-Hou

    March 18th, 2008 at 6:16 am

    Native place language，The person multi-strengths are big！

  18. 113.com

    March 18th, 2008 at 6:16 am

    Not emotional at all :-)

    That’s why P&G enters China two decades ago — because P&G knew people can spend (in addition to can-manufacture)..

    And not only $1 items, but ranging from LV accessories, to latest model of cellphones, to Boeing jetliners, etc etc etc.

    Hope you get that aspect also…

  19. Daniel Serra

    March 18th, 2008 at 6:37 am

    The dominance of Google Search in Europe and LatinAmerica is amazing!

  20. Rachel

    March 18th, 2008 at 6:48 am

    Glad to know that Google dominates the search market in the little island of Singapore!

  21. fire-pixel.com

    March 18th, 2008 at 6:51 am

    He who controls the pr0n controls the world! Muahahahaha!

    Until then China is just the underlord that rules us through our pocket books.

    Seriously though, when will the American consumer, businesses and politicians wake up and realize it’s not oil dependence we should be focusing on, it’s our dependence on China that will be our undoing. It frustrates me. We should have - just like nutritional labels - a “Made in” label that lists the parts and where they were made. Yah, I’m sure the lobbyists would go for that. Fat chance.

    So here, have something to distract you for a bit other than my depressing message.

    Good article:

    Top 10 Awesome Websites That Sell Cool Products You Probably Have Never Visited But Need To.

    http://www.comember.net/blogs/firepixel/

    Have a good one

  22. mhater

    March 18th, 2008 at 7:20 am

    Looks like other than in Search where Yahoo is a 2nd, it is doing very very well compared to Google….. interesting!

  23. mhater

    March 18th, 2008 at 7:22 am

    BTW, how big is the comscore sample size? The last I heard, comscore only had 200,000 data points globally. Is that statistically significant?

  24. Frank Church

    March 18th, 2008 at 7:24 am

    @mhater, Yahoo is also way behind in montetization, which what counts outside the valley.

  25. etavitom

    March 18th, 2008 at 7:29 am

    very interesting. thanks for all the useful content.

  26. sd

    March 18th, 2008 at 9:03 am

    btw, can someone tell me what is the different between online gaming and entertainment? 2nd life vs. youtube etc?

  27. Son Nguyen

    March 18th, 2008 at 9:05 am

    Definitely interesting trends and thanks for sharing.

  28. Jamati

    March 18th, 2008 at 9:17 am

    Why is Africa excluded from these slides? Are their slides that show where Africa is now in terms of Internet usage?

  29. H

    March 18th, 2008 at 9:50 am

    Well I don’t get why Brazil is missing as well. Here are some data: Accordingly to Ibope Netratings 21,4 million home users by the end of 2007 - a 48% increase since end 2006 (estimatives put that number up to 39 million when extended to work, schools and cafes). Ibope Netratings says also the brazilian users spend the highest average time online: 22h 59min. 2nd is France 20h34m, 3rd USA with 19h47m. E-commerce represents almost 60% of that number with 12-million home-buyers. In a way it’s actually good no one is looking down ;)

    more here: sorry portuguese only, google may help: http://www.ibope.com.br/caland.....D4006F4077

  30. Anthony Kuhn

    March 18th, 2008 at 1:06 pm

    This just shows that when an ecosytem is closed, say like the Chinese seach market, there will be one clear winner with no hope of a change. On the other hand, Google might still be able to make inroads for search in Russia and Korea if it properly addresses the local flavor preference of both markets. Great piece overall, and much better than having to pay $5K to read it first-hand.

  31. Hagia-Sophia.net

    March 18th, 2008 at 2:31 pm

    Very nice stats…
    Keep them coming…

  32. Strubit

    March 18th, 2008 at 2:34 pm

    Erick, impressive post. Very worthwhile reading. It’s posts like this that bring me back to TechCrunch.

  33. Farhad

    March 19th, 2008 at 9:25 am

    This data does not seem to match some of the other Internet user numbers we’ve heard bandied about. I always have a tough time giving any credence to numbers spat out by comScore and Nielsen because they’re based on ridiculously small sample sizes and then wildly extrapolated.

    E.g. Google’s share of search in the UK is definitely nearer 85% than the 73% reported here.

    The numbers should be considered to be nothing more than a rough guide of relative popularity.

  34. Farhad

    March 19th, 2008 at 9:33 am

    According to this article on MSNBC, China has 210 Million Internet users:

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22734891/

    Never thought i’d say this, but I trust the Chinese government’s data more in this case than I do comScore’s random calculations.

  35. Charlie

    March 19th, 2008 at 1:30 pm

    Very nice numbers without a doubt, thanks. But, where’s “Costa Rica” on the Latin America group? I know we are not a big country, but Google’s searches are representative here. (If not #1)

  36. Richard Hearne

    March 20th, 2008 at 2:10 am

    Irish Google share reported as ‘closer to Spain than UK’ by Google. 90%+ figures bandied about.

    The UK figure also looks well short.

    You have to assume these figures are skewed by sample bias…
    Useful, but dont bet the house on them.

  37. Patrician Designs.com

    March 20th, 2008 at 7:21 am

    Now I understand why my customers for INFINITY Symbol Jewelry and Natural Crystals sculpted in Silver, find my sites via Google Search in Australia, New Zealand, Poland, Italy and France. I even get orders from remote US Army or Marine bases all over the World.

    If they are buying through my Ebay store, their orders come translated, as well.

    I find all of the above data fascinating! Thanks

  38. Gary Rybold

    April 6th, 2008 at 3:24 am

    I mainly use Google because their software is simple and straight to the point. Other search engines are SLOWED DOWN by their intrusive advertisements and analytics. I just performed a Yahoo search out of curiosity, and most of the results linked to their own websites (unbiased experience).

    Any statistics on what percentage of all internet searches are for porn? Is it just certain countries, or is the whole world addicted to internet porn?

    Farhad, I don’t trust data from the chinese govt, especially after hearing how they restrict media access, filter internet content, and beat up (Tibet) and kill (Tienanmen Sq.) peaceful people, trying to share their opinions.

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