Kevin Johnson is looking more and more like Nostradamus with every passing month.
Analytical firm Experian Hitwise claims that Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) Bing powered 30% of the country's searches last month. It was back in 2007 that Microsoft exec Johnson turned heads by publicly targeting roughly 35% market share for Microsoft in search -- and 40% in online advertising -- within three to five years.
It seemed ridiculous at the time. Microsoft commanded a sliver of search, and the Bing rebranding was still a couple of years away. A few months after Johnson's comments, Microsoft came up empty in its bid to acquire Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) outright.
Things are different now that Yahoo! searches are powered by Bing, but even that doesn't tell the whole story. Bing and Yahoo! combined for just a 24% chunk of market share this past summer.Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) clocked in with a seemingly formidable 71.6% slice.
Microsoft's ascension, Yahoo!'s resiliency, and Google's gravity have made this an interesting race to watch. No one is close to unseating Big G at the helm, but Hitwise pegs Google's share at just 64.4% during the four weeks ending April 2. Yahoo! and Bing checked in at 15.7% and 14.3%, respectively.
Bing still has an uphill battle to get to Johnson's 35% goal. It's going to have to happen organically, since Google just locked up IAC's (Nasdaq: IACI) Ask.com to a new search-serving deal through 2016. It inked a new five-year deal with AOL (NYSE: AOL) last summer. Then again, it has made up more than half that ground since August.
Will the trend continue?
Google has never taken its pole position for granted, but this can't be the way it mapped it out.
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Google and Microsoft are Motley Fool Inside Value selections. Google is a Motley Fool Rule Breakers pick. Yahoo! is a Motley Fool Global Gains choice. Motley Fool Options has recommended a diagonal call position on Microsoft. The Fool owns shares of Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo!. Motley Fool Alpha LLC owns shares of Microsoft. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors.
Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz is a huge fan of all portals and search engines. He does not own shares in any of the stocks in this story. Rick is also part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early. The Fool has a disclosure policy.
