A week ago, the cat was let out of the bag: Apple and Microsoft were in talks over replacing Google with Bing, and have been for weeks, as the default search engine on the iPhone. Immediately, there were questions over the implications of this move, both for the companies involved and the users.
Today, online advertising network Chitika has released some numbers that show just how big of a move this could be for all parties involved.
As things stand right now, Google accounts for just over 50% of iPhone traffic and it would like to keep it that way. As Chitika’s blog points out, this is likely a direct result of Google being the default search engine when text is entered in the the iPhone browser’s address bar.
Bing barely registers on the search engine map, as do most others.
Is this a case of the chicken or the egg? Do people use Google because that’s become the standard? Or is it because they’ve become used to it as the default choice? Another graph shows that, while less dominant, Google still remains the leader when we move away from iPhones to all traffic. Here, users have not only a choice of platform, but of browser and default search engine as well.
We think that Apple could have a potential problem on their hands with some angry users if they go through with this switch. According to the data, out of nearly three million impressions, just 2,387 were directed at Bing. That’s compared to 1,464,173 for Google. Either that, or the move will force a whole lot of people to suddenly become Bing converts.
