Microsoft's new Bing search engine led the company to a gain of 0.4 percent in U.S. search market share in June, according to closely watched statistics from the comScore Networks research firm. The news comes via Wall Street analysts who got an early look at the numbers. The company reached 8.4 percent market share, compared with 19.6 percent for Yahoo and 65 percent for Google.
In the scheme of things, that's not a huge gain -- not even getting Microsoft back to where it was in January. The company is spending many millions on advertising for Bing, and Microsoft recently reported an 8 percent increase in unique visitors to its search site in June. But given the size of the challenge Microsoft faces against Google, some analysts are still receiving the comScore numbers favorably.
"Microsoft has reversed the trend of market share loss that it has been experiencing in search, which we view as constructive and expect the company to build on," wrote Sarah Friar, a Goldman Sachs analyst, in a note to clients this morning. She noted that Goldman also takes "a positive read-through for Microsoft from Intel’s 2Q earnings ... which suggested better than expected PC momentum."
AllThingsD's Peter Kafka notes that JP Morgan analyst Imran Khan expects Bing to eventually increase Microsoft's market share by 2 percentage points, mostly by taking away traffic from AOL Search and Ask.com.
Microsoft reports its fiscal fourth-quarter and 2009 earnings July 23, and Bing will be one of the hot topics.
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