Global SEM Breakdown: Mostly Google

Today Google is expected to report "stellar earnings," according to a Forbes article published this week. In Q3 2007, Google reported that 48% of its revenue came from outside the US, which leads the author to conclude "even a recession should not impede Google's growth." This week we reported that Google accounted for 77% of search spend in Q4 07, and captured 97% of the additional search marketing spend added by a fixed group of US clients this year. Analysis of data from our international client base shows that with the exception of Japan, where Yahoo dominates search, other markets lean even more heavily toward Google than the US.

Google search and content covers more than 85% of the marketplace in Australia, UK, and Europe. MSN adCenter is not operating in Australia, and has a presence in only some European countries.

Efficient Frontier CEO Ellen Siminoff recently wrote about the global opportunity for SEM in MediaPost's Search Insider. Google may not be able to take the majority of search share in China and Japan, but it seems as if world domination might be in its future, making "don't be evil" an increasingly important motto.

Comments

[Nem Nem]

A recession could hamper Google's growth - they are strong in international markets where the economy has close ties to the US.

In other important markets such as Iran, Russia, Korea, Japan, China and India I am not sure they are so strong. The western recession that we are experiencing will impact Google. GOOG share price is hurting in the bear market (down ~20% in last 5 weeks), whereas stock like MSFT that have a literally global presence are still holding strong.

[R Johnson]

I don't see how the content figures could be accurate. Yahoo News, for starters, is hugely popular in the US. What Google content does anyone use... in any country? MSN has content, too, which is popular... but that doesn't even appear on the chart at all.

[LeeAnn Prescott]

R Johnson:
AdSense, Google's contextual advertising network contains hundreds of thousands of publishers, some of which include CNN, the New York Times, and MySpace. These publishers, in sum, make up far more inventory than Yahoo! or MSN has to date. Thus a larger percentage of Google's spend goes to content than for the other search engines. This post shares some best practices for content advertising.