Of course it isn’t.
It has, however, experienced a second month of a sub 90% market share in the UK. Data from Experian Hitwise in November showed how Google’s market share dipped below 90%, with Microsoft, Yahoo! and Ask all seeing gains.
The latest data shows that December 2012 continued this trend:
I don’t think that Google will be too nervous as it still enjoys a near monopoly in the UK and has just announced some very positive results, but I am sure the competition will enjoy seeing some green arrows, however small.
Some other highlights from the Christmas analysis include:
- 2.7bn visits were made from the UK to search engines in December 2012 (a year-on-year increase of 17% – who said that SEO is dead?)
- A record 2.8bn visits were made to UK retail sites in December 2012 (a year-on-year increase of 30% – helped by an early start to sales by a number of retailers)
- 656m of these occurring in the week ending December 29.
- 84m visits were made to retail websites on Christmas Eve and 107m visits on Christmas Day (a year-on-year increase of 86% and 71% respectively)
- Boxing day rose the bar even further to become the busiest day ever for online retail in the UK with 113m visits
- Amazon was the most visited ecommerce site on Christmas Day with more than 12% of all visits
- Kenshoo’s report shows how paid search competition resulted in a year-on-year increase in average CPC of 26% for UK retailers
All in all, some very positive figures that help to overcome the doom and gloom of the demise of some high street bastions. I, and many others, have said it before, but there is no doubt that shopping habits have changed and failure to embrace online is proving to be a fatal mistake for many brands.
Yes, economic times are tough, but people are still spending money and getting things right online can help grow a business. Here is a good breakdown of what John Lewis did right to produce a 44% increase in online sales.
