Windows 10 is proving to be a boon to Bing’s advertising revenue, as it was recently announced that the revenue from Microsoft’s search engine is up 16% year-over-year as of last quarter.
Not only is Bing the default search engine for the Microsoft Edge browser, it is the default search engine for the virtual assistant Cortana. While you can change the default search engine in the Edge browser, Microsoft recently locked out users from using any other search engine with Cortana.
The numbers show that Cortana is changing the way people search on Bing. It was reported in May that 25% of all searches performed on Bing are voice searches. Expect that number to grow as people grow more accustomed to utilizing voice search.
Creating a captive audience has been a successful strategy for Microsoft, as 40% of all Bing ad revenue came from Windows 10 users this past June. It was only this past March when that number was at 35%.
More people migrating to Windows 10 means more search volume for Bing which will likely mean more revenue driven from Bing going forward.
Bing is not only seeing gains in paid search revenue, it is seeing gains in organic search market share. It was reported this past May that Bing’s share of the US desktop search market was growing faster than Google’s.
It’s been a good year so far for Bing, but that’s not to say it hasn’t also been a good year for Google. In the first quarter of 2016 Google search revenue was up 16% — and it’s likely that number will be even higher when Google announces its second quarter earnings on July 28th.
