Google still dominates search, but in recent months, there’ve been signs that its rivals have the opportunity to pick away at its share. Paul Hiebert and Trishla Ostwal look at a recent trend that could be portentous to the giant.
For the first time since 2015, Google’s global share of the search market fell below the 90% threshold in the last quarter of 2024, according to data from Statcounter. That trend has continued through the months of 2025, with the exception of February, where Google’s share was 90.15%.
The dip suggests the trend isn’t an anomaly, but a sign of mounting competitive pressure and shifting user behavior.
In a landscape where Google once looked untouchable, cracks are beginning to show.
Per Statcounter in April 2025, other search engines like Yahoo hold 1.33% global market share, Yandex sits at 2.49%, and privacy-focused DuckDuckGo accounts for 0.79%.
“This drop may feel like a small percentage, but given the consistency of months it is clearly a trend,” said Gartner director analyst Noam Dorros. “While we can’t directly pinpoint the market share shifts due to AI-powered search engines like Perplexity or SearchGPT, this could be a sign of younger demographics making up a larger portion of the search space and leaning on alternative search engines.”
The search giant has long dominated the internet’s gateway to information, attracting years of antitrust scrutiny along the way. The Trump administration’s Department of Justice continues to push for a breakup of Google’s alleged search monopoly, adding regulatory heat to the company’s cooling grip on the market.
