The latest numbers on U.S. search market share show why Microsoft CEO Steve Balllmer wants to acquire Yahoo so badly that he's willing to pay more than $40 billion.
As we've told you before, we still think it's a mistake, because buying Yahoo isn't going to solve the Google problem for Microsoft.
For proof, look at the February search numbers from comScore show a continuation of a long-term trend: Google's market share rose to a record high, while Yahoo's sunk to a record low.
Google now gets just under 60% of search queries, nearly three times Yahoo's share of almost 22% and six times Microsoft's share of just under 10%.
Given that Yahoo and Microsoft have nothing to show for their billions of dollars of investment in their respective search businesses, I still don't see how combining the two is going to yield a different result.
One troubling trend that's worth watching for all search companies -- overall year-over-year market growth decelerated to 15%, a significant drop from the 23% year-over-year growth in January.
That could be do in part to the law of large numbers, but one other number from the report makes it a trend worth watching.
The total number of searches decreased from January, and the 5.8% sequential drop is the largest in at least six months.
That's a reminder that the U.S. search business, now more than a decade old, likely has already seen or will soon see the end of 20% annual growth.
