As more of us use mobile services like Yelp, Kayak, and Shazam to find what we need when we're out and about, Google is losing its edge in mobile search. That's the gist of a new report from analytics firm eMarketer, out this week.
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Google's declining share of mobile search dollars is notable in context with the market's fragmentation. Google owned 82.8% of the $2.24 billion mobile search market in 2012, and while the company's mobile search revenues continue to increase, other players have ramped up their efforts to become the entry portal for mobile information. Google still dominates browser-based searches on mobile devices, but niche search apps are also becoming much more prevalent. This caused Google's share to drop to 68.5% in 2013, according to eMarketer estimates, while the long tail of "other" companies increased share from 5.4% to 22.9%. This year, we expect Google's share to fall again, to 65.7%, while the "other" category reaches 27.3%.
