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SAN FRANCISCO - Google enjoyed one of its biggest monthly gains in US web search market share in October, building on consistent gains over the past two years, according to industry data released this week.
Market research firm comScore Inc said Google's core web search properties captured
58.5 per cent of the US market in October, up from 57.0 per cent in September.
The top five providers of web search all showed at least 5 per cent growth in the number of searches in October. Yahoo was number two after Google, followed by Microsoft, IAC/InterActiveCorp's Ask.com and Time Warner network of sites, including AOL.
"They are all growing in the number of search queries but Google is taking a disproportionate share," comScore spokesman Andrew Lipsman said by phone.
Yahoo sites had 22.9 per cent of the US market, a 0.8 percentage-point fall from September. Microsoft slipped to 9.7 per cent from 10.3 per cent, Ask was flat at 4.7 per cent and Time Warner's network dipped 0.1 percentage point to 4.2 per cent.
Google shares rose more than 3 per cent to a high near $US670 before settling back later in regular Nasdaq trade to $666.51, up 2.8 per cent. Yahoo shares fell 3.1 per cent to $25.87, while Microsoft stock was off half a percentage point at $34.39.
On Tuesday, broker Credit Suisse set a $900 price target on Google, a new Wall Street high, arguing that the Silicon Valley internet leader is poised to monopolize search.
"We believe that search is a natural monopoly business and expect that over time Google will continue to gain share until they have effectively reached 100 per cent," Credit Suisse analyst Heath Terry wrote in a research note to investors.
Google attracted 6.1 billion searches of the 10.5 billion searches conducted by US web users last month. Total search activity grew 12 per cent over September, which is typically a slow month until students return to school.
In recent months, comScore has introduced an expanded measure of search activity on major internet sites including not just searches on, for example, Google.com but also searches on other Google properties such as video-sharing site YouTube.
By this measure, Google's web search activity grew 14.8 per cent, or faster than the single-digit growth rates of rivals Yahoo, Microsoft and Time Warner.
Search activity for News Corp's Fox Interactive Media dipped 1.8 per cent, with its biggest property, social network leader MySpace, declining 1.7 per cent. Comparable data for MySpace rival Facebook was not available in the survey.
- REUTERS