As of March 2025, Google represented 79.1 percent of the global online search engine market on desktop devices. Despite being much ahead of its competitors, this represents the lowest share ever recorded by the search engine in these devices for over two decades. Meanwhile, its long-time competitor Bing accounted for 12.21 percent, as tools like Yahoo and Yandex held shares of over 2.9 percent each. Google and the global search market Ever since the introduction of Google Search in 1997, the company has dominated the search engine market, while the shares of all other tools has been rather lopsided. The majority of Google revenues are generated through advertising. Its parent corporation, Alphabet, was one of the biggest internet companies worldwide as of 2024, with a market capitalization of 2.02 trillion U.S. dollars. The company has also expanded its services to mail, productivity tools, enterprise products, mobile devices, and other ventures. As a result, Google earned one of the highest tech company revenues in 2024 with roughly 348.16 billion U.S. dollars. Search engine usage in different countries Google is the most frequently used search engine worldwide. But in some countries, its alternatives are leading or competing with it to some extent. As of the last quarter of 2023, more than 63 percent of internet users in Russia used Yandex, whereas Google users represented little over 33 percent. Meanwhile, Baidu was the most used search engine in China, despite a strong decrease in the percentage of internet users in the country accessing it. In other countries, like Japan and Mexico, people tend to use Yahoo along with Google. By the end of 2024, nearly half of the respondents in Japan said that they had used Yahoo in the past four weeks. In the same year, over 21 percent of users in Mexico said they used Yahoo.

In January 2020, Google accounted for 87.17 percent of single-word search queries worldwide. Yahoo generated 3.73 percent of single-word search during the same period. When looking at search queries with two words and more, Google absolutely dominated the market with over 94 percent market share in every query length.

Much like the alternatives to mainstream social media platforms, China has pioneered the production of search engines that provide an alternative to Google and Bing. Some of the most prominent Chinese search engines are ***** and ****, with a combined market share of ***** percent. Baidu – China’s internet giant Since its founding in 2000, Baidu’s revenue surged swiftly and totaled about ****** billion yuan in 2024. A majority of the revenue was generated through online marketing services. However, the operating profit bounced back after having contracted in 2019 and 2021. Baidu used to control about ** to ** percent of China’s online search market, a new contender Haosou emerged and is expected to close the gap shortly. Other search engines in China In a country with around *** million online search users, there are multiple local options besides Baidu. In a 2023 consumer survey in China, Shenma and Quark Search were rated the best in user experience whereas Haosou or 360 Search led the pack in search response speed and the diversity in search results.

In April 2024, Google was the most popular search engine in the UK, holding a market share of ***** percent across all devices. Bing had a relatively large market share of approximately **** percent in second place, followed by Yahoo! with approximately **** percent.

This statistic shows the market share of most preferred mobile search engines in China between ************* and ************. In that period, over ** percent of the respondents in a survey about mobile search in China stated that they were using Baidu mobile search engine.

Mobile search has come a long way, being offered in the form of search apps (Google, Yahoo! Search and Bing) and internet browsers such as Google Chrome and Safari. According to a September 2020 survey, the vast majority (** percent) of European mobile internet users reported being satisfied to very satisfied with the choice of search engines available on the internet.

Throughout 2020, Google was the most popular online search engine in the Dominican Republic with a market share of nearly **** percent. It was followed by Microsoft's Bing with **** percent of share during that period. Likewise, Google also topped the ranking in Brazil.

This statistic highlights the distribution of total and mobile organic search visits in the United States as of the first quarter of 2019, by engine. During the measured period, Google accounted for 92 percent of overall organic search engine visits in the United States.

In January 2025, Google accounted for 93.89 percent of the global mobile search engine market worldwide. Ever since the release of Google Search in 1997, the company's search engine has dominated the search engine market, maintaining a margin of more than 93 percentage points since January 2015. Currently owned by the parent corporation Alphabet Inc., Google has one of the highest tech company revenues, with roughly 305.63 billion U.S. dollars in 2023.

Based on a survey conducted in 2019 among internet users in the United States, the majority of adults (36 percent) admitted they would switch search engines if it meant getting better quality results. Furthermore, 33.7 percent stated that knowing their data was not being collected by a platform would also encourage them to make the switch. Other factors listed included 'having fewer ads' and a well designed interface. Overall, there was a noticeable lean toward search result quality and data privacy when it came to search engine selection.

Google leads despite user preference for increased privacy

Despite a strong consumer call for data protection, Google topped the list when it came to search engines with 93 percent of Americans surveyed reporting to having used the popular search giant at some point during the past 4 weeks. In comparison, the second most popular platform Yahoo! had only been used by 31 percent of those surveyed. Meanwhile DuckDuckGo, the search engine most known for protecting user data and search history had only been used by 8 percent. Mobile search figures lean even more in Google's favor. Here, a similar share (93 percent) of the market as of January 2021 belonged to Google, while approximately 3 percent was held by DuckDuckGo.

Growth expected for search advertising

With search engines playing a significant role in internet use be it on desktop or mobile, companies and search platforms alike are seeing an increased opportunity in the field of search engine advertising. Nationwide spend in the industry reached an impressive 58.2 billion U.S. dollars in 2020, and was forecast to further rise to 66.2 billion within the following year.

Alternative search engine DuckDuckGo's worldwide market share has steadily increased from July 2019 to January 2025 – the largest surge being in the United States, which surpassed the search engine’s growth in all other regions. Here, an increased uptake began roughly around the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020, continuing in the months leading up to the US elections and beyond, but later running a bit lower than three percent in since January 2023. Ecosia - the more popular alternative in Europe While Google is still the market leader by a long shot when it comes to search engines in the United States - where DuckDuckGo is also based, consumer trust in big tech has been waning and more are seeking out privacy-based alternatives. In Europe, Ecosia is the more popular option and has seen steady growth particularly in Germany and France. Despite not having privacy as its main selling point, the German-based company invests its profits into tree-planting and reforestation projects. Americans’ waning trust in the government The onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic caught most governments off-guard, invoking a host of different responses and approaches across the globe. In the United States, overall trust in the government to deal appropriately with the pandemic fell by approximately 20 percent in the period between February 2020 and January 2021. In fact, among the various institutions of authority, Americans had the least trust in the government – even less than that towards the European Union. Conversely, the United Nations commanded the most public trust. As the COVID vaccination rollout continues across the country, young Americans aged 18 to 24 are also the most skeptical when it comes to the idea of vaccination passports for travel, with approximately 41 percent in support of the measure.

As of the fourth quarter of 2021, it was found that mobile devices accounted for 63 percent of organic search engine visits. This value has remained almost the same over the past two quarters. In the first quarter of 2021, though, it decreased to 59 percent.

This statistic shows the annual advertising revenue growth of search engines in China from 2016 to 2020 with forecasts until 2023. In 2022, the ad revenue of search engine companies in China was projected to increase by around *** percent compared to the previous year. Many advertisers reduced ad budgets on online search because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Google was by far the most popular online search engine in Colombia in 2020, accounting for almost ** percent of web traffic. Microsoft's Bing ranked second with slightly over one percent of share during the period. Moreover, Google Chrome concentrated most of the web traffic in Colombia.

In January 2024, Bing held a **** percent share of the search market in the United Kingdom (UK) across all devices. Meanwhile, Google held a much larger share of the UK's online search market.

Bing on the world stage  Google holds a similar share of the global desktop search market as it does in the UK. Outside of the UK, Bing attracts an increasing ***** percent share of the market. Worldwide, Bing regularly attracts more than *** billion unique monthly visitors.

Google and mobile: an unfair advantage?  Bing held just a *** percent of the mobile search market in the UK in June 2021. Despite being significantly lower than their overall share, this was still good enough to give Bing second place in the market, due to Google’s absolute dominance of mobile search in the UK. According to European regulators, however, the means with which Google achieved their dominance is neither fair nor legal.

In 2019, Google was fined *** billion euros for effectively forcing manufacturers of android-based equipment to bundle Chrome and Google search with their devices, in order to access other Google services. As a result of that ruling, users setting up android devices in Europe from the start of 2020 will be able to choose from a list of available default search providers. The available options of the list will vary country to country, based on a bidding process in which rival search engines indicate to Google exactly how much they would be willing to pay per user selecting their company as the default search provider.

As of the third quarter of 2024, around **** percent of consumers surveyed in Malaysia discovered new brands, products, and services through search engines advertising. By comparison, the share of consumers who found new brands from search engine ads was slightly higher in the third quarter of 2020, at **** percent.

As of June 2020 the share of MSN in the desktop search market across India was at a minimal **** percent. This has not changed much compared to the previous year in which the market share was **** percent.

In April 2025, Google accounted for over 94 percent of the mobile search market in the United States. With approximately 66 percent reach among mobile audiences, Google Search is also one of the most popular mobile apps in the United States. DuckDuckGo and Yahoo! followed as the leading mobile search providers in the United States during the last examined month, with shares of around 2.1 percent each.

During the past decade, the expenditure on search engine advertising steadily increased in Denmark. TSearch engine ad spending amounted to **** billion Danish kroner in 2020. By comparison, the ad spend was *** billion kroner in 2009.

The share of DuckDuckGo in the desktop search market across India was **** percent in the month of April 2023. This was a increase from the market share in April 2022 of about **** percent.