Google took 91.1% of worldwide search referrals in August 2026, against 4.5% for Bing, according to Statcounter Global Stats. Most Bing vs Google statistics stop at that split, which is a shame, because the blended figure hides the one surface where Bing genuinely competes. Bing holds 8.84% of desktop search worldwide and 0.6% of mobile search.
The money and the regulators sharpen the picture further. Microsoft reported $15.176 billion in search advertising revenue for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2026, while Alphabet reported $224.532 billion in Google Search & other revenue for 2025. Two competition authorities have since put Bing’s scale into the formal public record, and one of them declined to regulate it for being too small.
Key Takeaways
- Google’s worldwide search lead over Bing stands at 86.6 percentage points in the August 2026 Statcounter reading.
- Bing’s desktop share runs close to 14.7 times its mobile share, so the device mix drives almost all of the aggregate gap.
- Microsoft’s search advertising revenue grew 12% excluding traffic acquisition costs in fiscal 2026, driven by higher search volume and revenue per search.
- Search advertising accounts for 4.6% of Microsoft’s total revenue, which is why a weak share number never threatens the company.
- Google Search & other supplies 55.7% of Alphabet’s revenue, so the same metric is existential on one side and marginal on the other.
- Google Search & other revenue in 2025 ran about 16.2 times Microsoft’s search advertising revenue in fiscal 2025. That is a narrower gap than the worldwide query split implies, so Microsoft converts each point of its share into more revenue than query volume alone would predict.
Editor’s Choice
- Google worldwide search share: 91.1% in August 2026.
- Bing worldwide search share: 4.5% in August 2026.
- Google Search & other revenue: $224.532 billion in 2025.
- Microsoft search advertising revenue: $15.176 billion in fiscal 2026.
- Bing desktop share worldwide: 8.84% in August 2026.
- Google share of UK general search queries: more than 90%.
Bing vs Google Statistics: Worldwide Search Market Share
- Google draws roughly 20.2 times the referral share Bing does across all devices.
- Everything other than Google splits about 8.9% of worldwide search referrals, and Bing takes half of that remainder.
- Yahoo, Yandex, DuckDuckGo and Baidu together hold 3.54%, less than Bing on its own.
- Bing reaches 4.74% in Europe, its closest regional match to the worldwide average.
- Bing falls to 2.3% in Asia, where Google climbs to 93.47%.
| Search engine | Worldwide share |
|---|---|
| 91.1% | |
| Bing | 4.5% |
| Yahoo! | 1.23% |
| Yandex | 0.99% |
| DuckDuckGo | 0.7% |
| Baidu | 0.62% |
Source: Statcounter Global Stats, August 2026
Bing’s line in that table matters more than Google’s for anyone deciding where to spend attention. Bing is the default answer to the question of what else is out there, even when the answer is small. Readers tracking the wider field will find the same measurement pattern in our search engine statistics coverage.
Bing vs Google Search Share by Device
- Google takes 86.05% of desktop search worldwide, its lowest of the three platform readings here.
- Google takes 95.59% of mobile search worldwide, nearly ten points higher than its desktop figure.
- Google’s own desktop-to-mobile spread is 9.54 percentage points, a fraction of the swing Bing shows.
- Yahoo holds 2.15% of desktop search worldwide, ahead of Yandex on the same platform.
- Yandex holds 0.9% of mobile search, edging past Bing on that platform.
By the numbers: Statcounter’s August 2026 reading puts Google at 86.05% of desktop search against 95.59% on mobile, a swing of 9.54 percentage points on its own side of the ledger. Bing moves proportionally much further between the same two platforms. Bing’s problem is not that people dislike it. Its problem is that the phone in their pocket never offers it.
How many people use Bing vs Google?
Neither company publishes a search user count, so share of referrals is the closest available proxy. On that measure, Google handles roughly 20 times the search traffic Bing does worldwide, and the gap narrows to about 9.7 times on desktop. Mobile is where the two diverge hardest, and mobile is where most search now happens.
Recent Developments
- July 29, 2026: Microsoft’s FY2026 Form 10-K reported $15.176 billion in search advertising revenue, covering the fiscal year ended June 30, 2026.
- July 29, 2026: Microsoft reported that fourth-quarter search advertising revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs increased 10%, with More Personal Computing revenue at $12.9 billion, down 4%.
- July 29, 2026: Microsoft disclosed that full-year search advertising revenue increased $1.3 billion or 9%, with growth attributed to higher search volume and revenue per search.
- July 23, 2026: Alphabet’s Q2 2026 Form 10-Q reported $63.271 billion in Google Search & other revenue for the quarter.
- August 2026: Statcounter’s United States reading put Google at 86.1% and Bing at 8.92%, nearly double Bing’s worldwide figure.
- August 2026: Statcounter’s United Kingdom reading put Google at 91.75% and Bing at 5.67%, a narrower gap than the worldwide average.
Why Google Is One of the Most Common Searches on Bing
- Google.com is one of the most common search queries on Bing, according to the CMA’s October 2025 final decision on general search services.
- The CMA describes Bing as Google’s main search competitor in the same passage, so the finding comes from a document that treats Bing seriously.
- The regulator also notes that the term “to Google” is commonly used to describe the act of web search.
- Neither instrument separates those navigational trips from genuine information-seeking search, so Bing’s 4.5% worldwide referral share and the CMA’s query finding describe different things and cannot be netted against each other.
The behavior has been folklore in search circles for a decade. What changed in 2025 is that a competition regulator wrote it into a statutory decision, which makes the behavior citable rather than anecdotal. For the wider picture on how much of that traffic Google actually absorbs, the usage data tells a consistent story.
Worth noting: The CMA’s finding cuts against a common assumption about default-driven share. If a meaningful slice of Bing sessions exists only to reach Google, then Bing’s reported 4.5% worldwide share overstates how many people chose Bing as their answer engine rather than as a launch pad.
What Competition Regulators Concluded About Bing’s Scale
- The Commission does not designate Microsoft as a gatekeeper in relation to Microsoft Bing, Microsoft Edge and Microsoft Advertising, even though they meet the quantitative thresholds set out in Article 3(2) of the Digital Markets Act, per the European Commission decision of 12 February 2024.
- The Commission found that Bing’s scale of usage by end users is low, both against the overall online search engine category and against Google Search.
- It also found that the launch of Bing Chat in February 2023 had not led to a stable and significant increase in Bing usage over the period considered.
- Microsoft Advertising was found to have a relatively small scale compared with the main providers of online advertising services in the European Union.
- The CMA reached the opposite conclusion about Google, designating it with strategic market status in general search and search advertising.
| Decision | Authority | Date | Outcome for the named service |
|---|---|---|---|
| Digital Markets Act Article 17(3) | European Commission | 12 February 2024 | Bing not designated as a gatekeeper core platform service |
| Digital Markets Act Article 17(3) | European Commission | 12 February 2024 | Microsoft Edge not designated |
| Digital Markets Act Article 17(3) | European Commission | 12 February 2024 | Microsoft Advertising not designated |
| Strategic market status investigation | Competition and Markets Authority | 10 October 2025 | Google designated in general search and search advertising |
Source: European Commission decision of 12 February 2024 and CMA final decision, October 2025
Read the two decisions side by side, and the asymmetry is stark. Regulators built an entire rulebook around search gateways, then formally excused Bing from it on the grounds that too few people pass through. The European Commission’s published decision and the CMA’s final decision on Google’s general search services both set out the reasoning in full.
Bing Market Share by Country and Region
- Canada gives Bing 9.56%, its strongest reading among the markets covered here, with Google at 85.66%.
- Germany puts Bing at 5.84% and Yandex at 1.56%, an unusually high Yandex figure for Western Europe.
- Europe as a whole gives Yandex 2.26%, its largest regional foothold outside its home market.
- DuckDuckGo reaches 1.7% in the United States, more than double its worldwide figure.
- Bing’s Canadian share runs about 4.2 times its Asian share, the widest geographic spread in the set.
Bing’s geography maps almost perfectly onto Windows-heavy, English-speaking, desktop-heavy markets. That is the same pattern the headcount behind Bing has been built around. Windows-heavy markets also explain why the engine’s regional ceiling has stayed roughly where it is.
Where the Other Search Engines Sit
- Yahoo holds 1.23% of worldwide search referrals, ahead of Yandex, DuckDuckGo and Baidu.
- Baidu takes 1.26% in Asia, far below the dominance its China-only figures once implied.
- Ecosia reaches 1.02% in Germany, its strongest market in this set.
- Yandex falls to 0.34% in the United States, where DuckDuckGo outdraws it 5 times over.
Every engine in that table except Yandex performs better in the United States than worldwide. Sample distribution explains more of that gap than American preferences do. The practical read is that Bing remains the only credible non-Google option at scale in Western markets, and it is not close.
Microsoft Search Advertising Revenue by Fiscal Year
- Microsoft added $2.87 billion of annual search advertising revenue across two fiscal years.
- That is a 23.3% rise on the fiscal 2024 base, a healthier trajectory than Bing’s flat share suggests.
- Microsoft attributes the growth to higher search volume and higher revenue per search, plus a benefit from third-party partnerships.
- The same line was $12.306 billion in fiscal 2024, the base for the two-year climb.
- Search advertising sits inside More Personal Computing, a segment that generated $12.9 billion in the June 2026 quarter.
Microsoft’s own Form 10-K for fiscal 2026 gives the search line as revenue only, with no user or query counts beside it. The revenue climbs steadily while the share sits still, which points to Bing monetizing its existing users better each year rather than winning new ones.
Google Search Revenue by Year
- Google Search & other added $49.499 billion in annual revenue between 2023 and 2025.
- Google Search & other revenues increased $26.4 billion from 2024 to 2025, per Alphabet’s annual report.
- Google Search & other revenue was $175.033 billion in 2023 and $224.532 billion in 2025.
- Alphabet attributes that growth to increases in search queries resulting from growth in user adoption and usage on mobile devices, growth in advertiser spending, and improvements in ad formats and delivery.
- The two-year revenue increase alone runs about 4 times Microsoft’s entire fiscal 2024 search advertising line.
By the numbers: Alphabet’s Google Search & other line grew from $175.033 billion in 2023 to $224.532 billion in 2025, an increase of $49.499 billion in two years. That two-year gain exceeds the entire annual search advertising business Microsoft reports. Every market-share comparison of the two engines rests on that arithmetic.
Google Search Revenue by Quarter
- Google Search & other revenues increased $9.1 billion from the three months ended June 30, 2025 to the three months ended June 30, 2026.
- The six-month figure rose $18.8 billion over the same period.
- Alphabet’s total revenue reached $119,796 million in the June 2026 quarter.
- Google Search & other supplied 52.8% of Alphabet’s quarterly revenue, holding its majority position even as Google Cloud accelerates.
| Period | 2025 revenue ($ billions) | 2026 revenue ($ billions) |
|---|---|---|
| Second quarter | 54.190 | 63.271 |
| First half | 104.892 | 123.670 |
Source: Alphabet Q2 2026 Form 10-Q, July 2026
Microsoft’s search advertising line produced $41.36 billion across fiscal 2024, 2025, and 2026 combined. Google Search & other took $63.271 billion in the June 2026 quarter alone. One quarter of Google Search revenue now exceeds three years of Microsoft search advertising revenue. Microsoft therefore treats search as an option on a larger platform rather than a business to defend.
Where Google Search Sits in Alphabet’s Revenue Mix
- YouTube ads generated $40,367 million in 2025, up from $36,147 million in 2024.
- Google Network revenue fell to $29,792 million in 2025 from $30,359 million in 2024.
- Google Cloud reached $58,705 million in 2025.
- Alphabet total revenues reached $402,836 million in 2025, against $350,018 million a year earlier.
- Google Search & other includes revenues generated on Google search properties and other Google-owned and operated properties like Gmail, Google Maps, and Google Play.
Worth flagging for anyone reading the search line as pure search: it bundles other owned properties, including Gmail. The reported figure therefore sets an upper bound on Google’s search advertising business rather than an exact measure of it. Competitors’ comparison tables almost never carry that caveat.
How Much Each Company Depends on Search
- Microsoft’s total revenue reached $331.839 billion in fiscal 2026, against a search advertising line of $15,176 million.
- Search advertising supplies 4.6% of what Microsoft earns, which is why a weak share reading never reaches the earnings call.
- Microsoft Cloud revenue was $214.4 billion in fiscal 2026, about 14.1 times the search advertising line.
- Google Services total revenue reached $342,721 million in 2025, and search sits at the center of it.
- Google Search & other is 55.7% of everything Alphabet earns, so one product line carries the majority of the company.
| Company (period) | Search revenue ($ millions) | Total revenue ($ millions) | Search share of total (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft (fiscal 2026) | 15,176 | 331,839 | 4.6 |
| Alphabet (2025) | 224,532 | 402,836 | 55.7 |
Sources: Microsoft FY2026 Form 10-K, July 2026; Alphabet FY2025 Form 10-K, February 2026
That asymmetry explains almost every strategic difference between the two products. Microsoft can treat Bing as an option because its revenue engine sits in enterprise cloud contracts. Behind that sit the SaaS subscription base and tools like Microsoft Teams. Alphabet has no equivalent cushion under its search line.
Which Search Business Is Growing Faster
- More Personal Computing revenue decreased $597 million or 1% in fiscal 2026, the segment that houses Microsoft’s search business.
- XBOX revenue decreased $1.7 billion, or 7%, and Windows and Devices revenue decreased $230 million, or 1%, over the same year.
- Fourth-quarter search advertising revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs increased 10%, up 9% in constant currency.
- Google Search & other grew 13.4% between 2024 and 2025.
- That accelerated to 16.8% year over year in the June 2026 quarter.
- YouTube ads revenues increased $4.2 billion from 2024 to 2025, on its own a larger absolute gain than Microsoft’s whole search business added.
Alphabet’s Google Search & other line added roughly 20.3 times as much revenue in 2025 as Microsoft’s search advertising business added in fiscal 2026. Percentage growth flatters the smaller base, and the dollar column is the honest comparison. The mobile install base doing most of that work shows up in Android distribution rather than in either company’s ad tooling.
The takeaway: Microsoft’s search advertising revenue rose $1.3 billion in fiscal 2026 while Alphabet’s Google Search & other line rose $26.4 billion in 2025. Both businesses are growing. Only one of them is growing by amounts that would register as a rounding difference on the other’s income statement.
How Much Search Volume AI Assistants Actually Take
- The assistants counted in the CMA’s assessment were ChatGPT, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, Meta AI and the Gemini AI assistant.
- Aggregated across those products, the regulator found they are equivalent to about 5-10% of the volume of queries submitted to Google Search.
- The Gemini AI assistant itself accounts for a minority of those queries (equivalent to less than 1% of queries submitted to Google Search), in relation to non-business users.
- ChatGPT is the market leader, with Gemini and Microsoft Copilot each used by less than a quarter of regular AI assistant users.
- Commissioned consumer research and product usage data show that while consumers are using AI assistants, their overall usage is currently low compared with use of traditional search engines.
| Query source | Equivalent share of Google Search query volume |
|---|---|
| All AI assistants combined | about 5-10% |
| Gemini AI assistant alone | less than 1% |
Source: CMA final decision on Google general search services, October 2025
The redacted band matters more than its width. A regulator working from product usage data it obtained directly put every assistant on the market at a single-digit fraction of one search engine’s query volume. Funding behind those products implies a much larger number. Reader demand for ChatGPT and Gemini AI usage figures runs far ahead of the query share either one currently commands.
Assistant volume also sits apart from what happens inside the results page itself, where generative summaries change click behavior without moving a single query off Google.
Key finding: The CMA’s October 2025 final decision put all AI assistant queries combined at about 5-10% of Google Search volume, with Gemini alone at less than 1%. The regulator reached those figures from commissioned consumer research and product usage data rather than from public estimates or vendor disclosures.
The UK Search Market in Numbers
- Google Search accounts for more than 90% of all general search queries in the UK, per the CMA’s final decision.
- Over 200,000 firms in the UK collectively spent more than £10 billion on Google search advertising last year.
- Statcounter’s August 2026 United Kingdom reading puts Yahoo at 1.25% behind Google and Bing.
- Ecosia reaches 0.3% in the United Kingdom and Yandex 0.28%.
- Everything other than Google splits 8.25% of UK search referrals, and Bing takes 68.7% of that remainder.
| UK search metric | Figure |
|---|---|
| Google share of general search queries (CMA) | more than 90% |
| Google share of search referrals (Statcounter) | 91.75% |
| Bing share of search referrals (Statcounter) | 5.67% |
| Firms buying Google search advertising | more than 200,000 |
| Combined spend on Google search advertising | more than £10 billion |
Sources: CMA final decision on Google general search services, October 2025; Statcounter Global Stats, August 2026
Two UK share measures come from completely different instruments and land within two points of each other, which is worth stating plainly. One counts general search queries inside a statutory investigation; the other counts referral pageviews from a tracking network. Agreement across methods that are unlike is the strongest signal in this section.
Is Bing actually better than Google?
Better is a product judgment, and the usage data answers a narrower question: whether enough people prefer Bing for that preference to register anywhere. The European Commission’s market investigation concluded that Bing is not an important gateway for end users to find business users, and not an important gateway for business users to reach end users. It reached that conclusion through market investigations pursuant to Article 17(3) of the Digital Markets Act.
Where Bing does compete, the answer changes shape. Its desktop and North American readings matter to anyone allocating search advertising budget. The blended worldwide figure reads as a rounding error. The honest summary is that Bing competes on desktop and barely registers on phones.
Why do people use Google instead of Bing?
Defaults decide most of it. The browser and the operating system in front of a user set the search box long before any comparison happens. Bing’s share therefore tracks Windows desktops and collapses on phones. We cover that distribution layer separately in our web browser usage data.
The Commission also found that Microsoft’s platform ecosystem does not currently sufficiently contribute to Bing being an important gateway for business users to reach end users. Habit then reinforces the default. If a meaningful share of Bing sessions exist only to reach a rival, the share gap reflects where the search box sits rather than a verdict on results quality.
Conclusion
Google’s 91.1% of worldwide search referrals against Bing’s 4.5% is the figure every comparison starts with, and on its own it is the least useful one in the set. The desktop reading of 8.84% against a mobile reading of 0.6% explains where the aggregate comes from, and Microsoft’s $15.176 billion search advertising line against Alphabet’s search revenue explains why only one of the two companies has to care about the answer.
Two competition authorities have now written Bing’s scale into the public record, and one of them declined to regulate it on exactly those grounds. That is the durable finding here. Share readings move a few tenths of a point each month. A regulator’s assessment that a search engine is too small to be an important gateway sets the terms for years.