When it comes to search engines, which do you ultimately prefer? Google? Yahoo? Bing? Well for Windows Phone users, a survey conducted has found that Bing is being used by 52% of Windows Phone users based on their findings back in Q4 2013. This is apparently a drop from 58% in Q3 2014, but still significantly higher compared to the desktop search market share. So why is Bing so popular on Windows Phone devices? Well obviously because it is the default search engine and is built into the phone itself, meaning that for better or worse, Windows Phone users will use Bing by default, unless of course they choose to load up Google or Yahoo before searching.
Given that sometimes mobile internet speeds can be slow, depending on coverage, searching using the default search engine might be faster than loading up a different search engine, and then using it to search, which is a multiple step process. Similar to how one might use the search bar built into Android to fire up a quick search rather than launch the Chrome app and then searching through it. However the fact that the number has decreased from 58% to 52% would suggest that Windows Phone users are starting to switch, although it was not mentioned whether they might be switching to either Yahoo or Google.
In fact it was recently that Yahoo tried to make their presence felt on Android by acquiring Aviate, an Android launcher which will presumably come with Yahoo’s search and services installed, essentially overriding Google’s own search and weather services.
Filed in . Read more about Bing (Microsoft), Microsoft and Windows Phone.