Summary: Will Microsoft concede defeat and head towards the nearest exit now that its search falls deeper into irrelevance?

MICROSOFT'S losses on the Web are colossal and their latest brand for a supposed "search engine" keeps declining globally, down to about 2.5% according to one survey (that's 1 in 40).

According to the web analysts at StatCounter, Microsoft's Bing search engine continued its worldwide decline in September, down to 2.59 per cent, a slippage of 28 per cent per cent from its peak of 3.59 percent in July.

We strongly emphasise many times (e.g. [1, 2]) that Microsoft loves citing US-only figures because they massively exaggerate Microsoft's impact in search; in reality, Google commands close to 90% of the world's queries. Here is more on the same topic:

According to comScore, Hitwise, and Nielsen, Bing gained ground in August, but StatCounter has released info indicating that Bing has experienced its first monthly decline in the US, in September.

Microsoft partner comScore [1, 2, 3], Hitwise, and Nielsen claim to be measuring US market share, which is almost meaningless because China alone exceeds that Internet population, in terms of size.

Microsoft spent about $100,000,000 just marketing its new brand and even paying blogs for publicity. Given the trends seen above, Microsoft will carry on losing billions of dollars on the Web. How long can it afford this burden? ⬆

"Bartz says search engine Bing unlikely to make significant mark"

--MarketWatch (June 2009)