Google dominates mobile search market

Google accounts for 60 per cent of mobile searches

Web monitoring firm comScore has released its latest figures for people using mobile search.

Google dominates the market in Europe and the US, while the UK has the highest number of users.

The number of people using mobile devices to search for information is steadily rising, according to comScore.

Some 4.5 million European and 20.8 million US mobile subscribers accessed search in June 2008, representing gains of 38 and 68 per cent respectively.

Overall, the UK had the highest number of mobile users accessing search services at 9.5 per cent of all subscribers. This just beats the US at 8.2 per cent.

Although the actual user figures are quite low at just under 1,700 people in the UK accessing search via a mobile device once a week, comScore said that this is likely to increase.

"It is interesting to see that, as the number of mobile search users increase, the frequency of activity is also growing," said Alistair Hill, an analyst at comScore.

Google accounts for 60 per cent of searches overall, according to the comScore figures. In the UK it has some 74 per cent market share compared with Yahoo's 16.2 per cent.

The split is closer in the US where Google boasts 63 per cent compared with Yahoo's 34.6 per cent.