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Microsoft has raised awareness of Bing, according to an analyst survey released Tuesday. The J.P. Morgan study, "Understanding the Impact of Bing on the Search Industry," suggests 59% of the 763 people completing the survey knew that Bing is a search engine. Of those who had heard of Bing, 42% had tested the engine in June. Sixty one percent had tried it less than five times, followed by 17% more than 15 times, 16% between six and 10 times, and 6% between 11 and 15 times.
When asked how many used Microsoft for the primary search engine, 7.1% before Bing launched, and 9.4% of those who participated in the survey said they would use Bing as their primary search engine, implying roughly 230 basis point market share gain.Based on the June survey numbers, Microsoft could gain 200 basis points of market share, J.P. Morgan Analyst Imran Khan said during a call to review the study. Each 100 bases points equate to $200 million in revenue gains, he says. That should bring $400 million in revenue based on the analyst firm's 2010 domestic search forecast of $20.1 billion, he says.
Bing's impact on other search engine will vary. Of the 30% of the people surveyed who changed their search habits in June, the majority of market share losses came from AOL and Ask. Roughly 25.8% indicated they used AOL less in June; 24%, Ask; 16.4%, Yahoo; and 10.6%, Google.
When asked to choose only one of Bing's greatest strengths, 38.3% revealed relevance of search results; 22.1%, variety of results; 18.2%, speed; 9.7% each for both user interface and organization; and 2%, none.
"Speed is one of the critical components to gain market share, based on our understanding of the space," Khan says.
The biggest impediment in Bing's attempt to gain market share is the majority of people surveyed are happy with their current search engine. Khan suggests it means Microsoft needs to significantly improve the product to gain market share, expand distribution and build on the available content through MSN.
The study suggests 63% of survey participants claimed there is no way to improve on their current search experience, which means it could take more for Microsoft to change users' habits.
Greenfield Online created the survey that 763 people complete between July 3, and July 6, 2009.
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