Microsoft has announced its third quarter earnings, and it seems the company is doing well in the search market. Bing may not be bringing its parent company high profits, but it seems to be key to boosting other businesses' online visibility.
Bing and MSN, combined, boasted 14 percent year-over-year revenue growth in FY11 Q3 – even if profits showed a net loss of $726 million for the company. Microsoft doesn't seem to be sweating profit losses in its Online Services Division, and it notes that the annual revenue growth in this realm was “primarily driven by increases in search revenue.”
Microsoft says Bing's search share has increased to 13.9 percent, which correlates with the latest data from comScore. As Brafton has reported, comScore says Bing saw modest month-over-month growth in March, and Hitwise says Bing-powered search now accounts for 30 percent of the market.
Notably, Bing's search partner, Yahoo, reported less positive search revenue earlier this month. Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz tried to blame irrelevant ads delivered by the Microsoft adCenter for her company's search losses, but search marketers might take this with a grain of salt. While searches through Bing are rising, Yahoo is seeing declines in the search arena.
