Google's share of the global web search market dipped in February from January, despite a rise in its US search share, an Internet industry analyst said on Wednesday, citing comScore data.
The data, released to paying subscribers Tuesday night but not yet made public, show Google's dominance of the worldwide market for Web search dipping slightly to 62,8 percent in February from 63,1 percent in January, said the analyst, who declined to be named, though Google gained share in the US market.
The overall volume of searches done through Google dropped in February to 5,86 billion from 6,14 billion, according to the data. The overall worldwide volume of searches also dipped.
"We are continuing to see deceleration in growth in Web search," said Jefferies & Co analyst Youssef Squali. "Google's month-over-month five percent decline is a little surprising, but all of the major web search names were down."
Investors cull through comScore's monthly search data for clues to growth trends in Google's core business of online advertising tied to such web searches and to watch for whether any of its rivals is managing to slow the Google juggernaut.
Squali said that, with the web search market appearing to mature, investor focus is shifting more to how well web search providers such as Google convert searches into actual advertising viewership. ComScore data on growth in "paid clicks," or the number of web search ads viewed in February, are due to be released by comScore to clients on Thursday.
ComScore plans to release a summary of its February web search trends report after the market close on Wednesday.
ComScore data show Google's US share among the top five Web search providers growing to 59,2 percent in February from 58,5 percent in January. Yahoo Inc saw its US share dip to 21,6 percent from 22,2 percent month-to-month.
Microsoft the No. 3-ranked US web search provider, slipped to a 9,6 percent share in February from 9.8 percent in January. No. 4 and No. 5 ranked AOL, a unit of Time Warner and Ask.com, a unit of IAC InterActive, saw their positions hold steady at 4,9 percent each.