Is 97 Percent of a Market a Monopoly?
March 9, 2011
Quite a question which I have not seen anyone ask. I did read the startling spider food headline “Google Controls 97 Percent Of Mobile Paid Search: Report.” I wonder if any eagle eyed regulators paid attention. Now the data come from a source that may not be familiar to some—an analyst report from a financial outfit. Most of these data are carefully screened and often support a position that the analyst wants to take with regard to a particular firm or market sector.
Notice that the rotini noodles are 98 percent the same. Is this consistency or a monopoly among the rotinis?
Google is the outfit the possible monopoly position. I suppose that someone at Google was surprised to be given such a accolade. Google has worked hard to present itself as just another friendly competition. Now an analyst firm asserts that the data from Efficient Frontier “proves” Google is the big dog in mobile paid search.
Now I am not sure what “mobile paid search” is. When I looked for a Pizza Hut last night, I had to resort to calling someone to look up the phone number. I then called the Pizza Hut, ordered the rotini my 89 year old father wanted, and drove to the aforementioned Pizza Hut. I want to note that my trust BlackBerry map did not get me to the Pizza Hut. I drove around until I spotted the building tucked next to a $5 haircut outfit.
Here’s the key passage from the write up which is probably going to be cited a number of times in the next 24 hours:
Just as Google dominates mobile search share in the US (with roughly 98 percent), the report said that 97 percent of mobile search spend (for Efficient Frontier clients) now goes to Google, while 3.2 percent spend goes to Bing/Yahoo.
Not too many qualifiers in this write up. Check out the charts. The pie chart is a keeper and will probably surface at some Congressional hearing later this year.
Stephen E Arnold, March 9, 2011
Freebie
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