Microsoft's new search engine, is making steady if unspectacular progress in its bid to wrest a bigger share of the lucrative US search and advertising market away from Google.
Bing increased its share of the US search market to 9.4 per cent in September from 9.3 per cent in August, according to figures released Wednesday by online tracking firm comScore.
It was the fourth month in a row of modest gains for Bing, which the Redmond, Washington-based software giant unveiled in late May accompanied by a 100-million-dollar advertising campaign.
Google, meanwhile, increased its share of the U.S. search market to 64.9 per cent in September from 64.6 per cent in August, comScore said.
Yahoo! saw its market share fall half-a-point to 18.8 per cent in September. Ask.com and AOL were unchanged at 3.9 per cent and 3.0 per cent respectively.
Yahoo! and Microsoft, after months of negotiations, unveiled a 10-year Web search and advertising partnership in late July that set the stage for a joint offensive against Google.
Under the agreement, Yahoo! will use Microsoft's search engine on its own sites while Yahoo! will provide the exclusive global sales force for premium advertisers.
The agreement between the Internet portal and software giant, which is subject to review by U.S. anti-trust regulators, is expected to close in early 2010.
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