Google Dominates Canada
Though some haughty Americans may smirk at the mention of their northern neighbors, Hitwise has released figures indicating that Google is even more dominant in Canada than it is in the U.S.
According to Hitwise, Google’s .ca and .com search properties handled 80.17 percent of all searches in Canada during the four weeks ending April 25, 2009.
MSN’s .ca and .com search properties finished a very distant second with 8.84 percent of all queries in Canada during April.
Yahoo!, traditionally the second banana to Google in the U.S., had its .ca and .com search properties finish third in Canada with 7.34 percent of all searches in April.
Ask’s .ca and .com search properties finished the month with 2.75 percent of all searches.
In terms of the most visited Internet categories in Canada, Hitwise showed that search engines (computers and Internet) attracted the most number of visits with 14.58 percent, followed by social networking and forums (computers and Internet) with 13.83 percent and entertainment with 13.60 percent.
E-mail services (computer and Internet) was fourth with 8.61 percent of visits in April, followed by business and finance with 7.14 percent and adult with 6.17 percent.
Portal frontpages (computer and Internet) (5.12 percent), multimedia (entertainment) (4.70 percent), shopping and classifieds (4.66 percent) and news and media (4.65 percent) rounded out the top 10 most popular categories in Canada during April.
Earlier this week, Google’s Android phones launched on Canada’s Rogers network. The search giant’s entrance into the Canadian market will be made on HTC Dream or HTC Magic smartphones.
Android’s already wealthy library of applications will make the phone’s entrance into Canada easier to swallow for mobile users thinking of diving into Google’s mobile waters.
As Google continues to tighten its grip in search markets all over the world, the expansion of Android phones will only make the company’s dominance in this world ever more evident.
With last week’s unveiling of Google Wave, the possibilities for the company’s dominant hold on information and access to consumers are beyond imagination.
Yes, many of Google’s ballyhooed products have fallen far short of early expectations, but its bold entrance and expansion in these key mobile and communication markets cannot be ignored.
Sources:
http://hitwise.com/press-center/hitwiseHS2004/ca-google-searches-04-09.php
