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(Credit: ComScore)

Google gained share of U.S. search in April compared with rivals, ComScore said Wednesday.

Compared with March, the company gained 1.8 percentage points to reach 61.6 percent share, ComScore said. Yahoo dropped 0.9 percentage points to 20.4 percent, Microsoft dropped 0.3 to 9.1 percent, AOL dropped 0.2 to 4.6 percent, and Ask dropped 0.4 percent to 4.3.

Americans conducted 10.6 billion search queries total in April, a number that dropped 2 percent from March, ComScore said. That means Google increased its absolute number of queries 1 percent, but all the others dropped.

Google passed Yahoo in its share of monthly visitors in the United States for the first time this April, buoyed by growth in search and YouTube videos, according to ComScore statistics released Thursday.

However, underscoring the variability of this sort of measurement, which extrapolates overall data from the usage of a "panel" of users at home and work, ComScore rival Nielsen Online released its own data as well with some different results. Although it also showed Google as No. 1 in terms of unique users, it said Google passed Yahoo way back in January 2007.

ComScore said Google sites had 141.1 million unique visitors in April, a tad ahead of Yahoo's 140.6 million. Microsoft was in third at 121.2 million, with AOL at 111.3 million.

Nielsen's data showed Google at 128.2 million, Microsoft at 122.1 million, and Yahoo at 117.1 million.

Nielsen also provides information on time spent at the sites, though. There, Yahoo leads its rivals with 3 hours and 9 minutes per month, but AOL owner Time Warner leads Yahoo at 3 hours 40 minutes per month.

Microsoft's usage was 2 hours and 17 minutes, and Google was 1 hour and 47 minutes, Nielsen said.

Update 4:07: I corrected a typo in the Yahoo market share statistics.

When you're talking about billions and billions of search queries, each potentially with some keyword-based ads alongside, every few hundredths of a percent of market share is important in the search market.

And that's what Google carved away from its main competition yet again, according to statistic for U.S. searches performed in April. Google increased its share from 67.25 percent in March to 67.90 percent in April, while Yahoo dropped a smidgen from 20.29 percent to 20.28 and Microsoft dropped from 6.65 percent to 6.26 percent. Ask.com, in fourth place, eked out an increase from 4.09 percent to 4.17 percent, Hitwise said.

The study also spotlighted Google's starring--and growing--role in sending traffic to various industries.

In April in the United States, Google was responsible for delivering about 31 percent of the Internet traffic at health and medical sites. For travel, Google was responsible for 23 percent of Internet traffic; for shopping and classifieds, 17 percent; news and media, 15 percent; and entertainment, 15 percent.

In all those areas and a few others, Google gained share over search rivals, Hitwise said.

(Credit: Hitwise)

Google was the dominant site to watch videos in the United States in March.

(Credit: ComScore)

People in the United States watched about 11.5 billion videos online in March, and Google extended its dominance in the area, according to new figures released Monday.

Google's sites served up 38 percent of the total videos watched, and YouTube accounted for 98 percent of Google's tally, ComScore said. Google gained 2.6 percentage points of market share since February.

Rivals are far, far behind: Fox Interactive Media, with 4.2 percent share; Yahoo with 2.9 percent, Viacom with 2.2 percent; and Microsoft with 2.1 percent.

Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock in 2006. It's working on new YouTube ad technology, Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said last week, to try to make more money from the video site.

The total number of videos watched grew 13 percent since February 2008 and 64 percent since March 2007, the Web analysis firm said.

Intel officially still rules the graphics chip market. But an arcane-sounding statistic called "double-attach" may redefine the chipmaker's standing.

First, the official first-quarter graphics chip market share numbers. Total shipments for Q1 were 95 million units, down 5.6 percent from the fourth quarter of 2007 and up 20 percent over the same period in the previous year, according to Jon Peddie Research.

"Traditionally, the first quarter has flat to negative growth for the computer industry as retailers and OEMs sell what's left from the holiday season. The quarter saw the biggest drop since 2005," said Peddie.

Total graphics chip market shares for the first quarter of 2008.

(Credit: Jon Peddie Research)

In the overall graphics market (desktops and notebooks), Intel held its first place position, claiming 42.7 percent, up from about 38.7 percent in the same period of the previous year, the market researcher said.

Nvidia's share stood at 32.7 percent, up from 28.5 percent in the year-earlier period. Advanced Micro Devices was at 18.6 percent, down from a 22 percent share last year.

On the desktop, Intel took back its first place position (year-to-year) with a 38 percent share against Nvidia's 36 percent, while AMD moved up to 19 percent, Peddie said.

In the notebook market, Intel held its dominant position but slipped one point to 53 percent while Nvidia gained a point to 27 percent and AMD slid a point to 17 percent.

Intel dominates market share figures because virtually all Intel-based PCs (shipping over the last few years) have an Intel Integrated Graphics Processor (IGP) built in. And PC suppliers opt to use this low-end Intel IGP configuration in a number of models--particularly in the notebook market--because it's an extremely inexpensive way to provide graphics. Intel graphics chips are used in specialized markets like ultra-portables, too. The Apple MacBook Air and ThinkPad X300, for example, ship only with Intel X3100 integrated graphics.

But this isn't the whole story. In a post Nvidia-CEO-rant world, there is a push to recognize a pesky statistic called "double-attach." This means that a PC shipped with an integrated Intel graphics chip will be double attached when a separate graphics card is attached on top of the existing Intel graphics silicon. The Intel chip is disabled and goes "unused."

"The overall 'double attach' is about 35 percent," said Jon Peddie. That puts a sizable dent in Intel's market share. A recent report from Doug Freedman of American Technology Research went so far to say this: "Nvidia remains the No.1 graphics supplier as up to 73 mil Integrated (Intel) IGPs are unused in systems due to 'double-attach' with a Nvidia solution."

The U.S. PC market is beginning to have less influence on the global market, according to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker.

Though it had previously projected 7 percent growth for the U.S. market, shipments inched up 3.5 percent, half what IDC was anticipating.

The fascination with low-cost portable PCs, like the Asus Eee PC pictured here, is driving down the cost of PCs everywhere.

(Credit: Erica Ogg/CNET News.com)

"The main issue is the economic situation in the U.S.," said Doug Bell, PC analyst for IDC. "It was the only region really impacted by the recession scare." Corporate IT budgets are showing that cautious approach, he noted. Spending on IT hardware is being delayed to the second half of this year or early next year, or at least tightened. Though Microsoft finally released Vista Service Pack 1 this quarter, it had less of an impact than anticipated, but could begin to convince businesses to upgrade next quarter.

The worldwide market is a different story. In the first quarter of 2008, shipments of PCs actually exceeded expectations, growing 14.6 percent to roughly 70 million units. That's two percentage points higher than anticipated.

Increased growth in the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) compensated for the U.S. shortcomings, however. Like the U.S., buyers in the region are moving toward more inexpensive portable PCs, particularly in emerging markets where many consumers are making their first PC purchase.

In good news for buyers, the average selling price of PCs is continuing to drop, due to the new market of low-cost PCs, like the Asus Eee PC and Everex Cloudbook. The volume of low-cost PCs shipping is still minimal, but it's growing. "With all major vendors putting resources into low-cost PCs, we're just starting to see a handful of offerings," said Bell. "It's unclear how large that market actually is because we really only have one or two products to base it on."

The world's top 5 PC vendors remained in their same positions (HP, Dell, Acer, Lenovo, and Toshiba), and all grew faster than the total market. Hewlett-Packard grew 17.4 percent, but that was the lowest growth rate of the top 5. Dell, which is in the midst of a comeback since its disastrous 2007, saw its shipments rise 21.6 percent over last year, while Acer was once again the growth leader at 66 percent. This is the second quarter in which its purchase of Gateway and Packard Bell have counted toward its total shipments, and the combined company's total actually resulted in a 20 percent drop from the same quarter a year ago, which IDC said is due to weaker Gateway-branded products.

It looks like Dell is beginning to get its ducks in a row, as this is the second straight quarter the Texas PC maker has shown positive growth. "To have this kind of growth in the U.S. is a good sign for them. It points to their new retail strategy and overall shift toward portables," said Bell.

As far as market leader HP, its impressive growth of the last year has been tempered slightly by market conditions. "They had such a great 2007, the economy kind of caught up to them. HP is a great example of (what's happened to) the U.S. PC market due to the economy."

Google gained market share in the United States over search rivals in March, rising 0.53 percentage points to an all-time high of 59.8 percent, according to new ComScore results released Tuesday.

"We were somewhat surprised at the March uptick, especially since the company had previously alluded that the unusual Easter timing could impact search activity," said Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney in a report Tuesday that quoted the ComScore numbers.

Yahoo, meanwhile, slipped 0.3 percentage points to 21.3 percent, and Microsoft dropped 0.2 percentage points to 9.4 percent--both figures are record lows for the companies, Mahaney said.

Lower in the rankings, AOL dropped 0.1 percentage points to 4.8 percent, while Ask.com rose 0.1 percentage points to 4.7 percent for March, according to the report.

The number of searches increased 18 percent compared to March 2007. Google's tally rose 18.4 percent, Yahoo dropped 1.8 percent, and Microsoft increased 9.4 percent.

Maybe that price cut in Blu-ray players is coming sooner than we think because Digitimes is reporting that Sony has set some very ambitious goals for Blu-ray in 2008. And by ambitious I'm talking a 50-50 split with DVD.

The short article, which carries the headline, "Sony looks to 50% global market share for its Blu-ray products in 2008," says that "Sony will offer Blu-ray Disc (BD) devices in a wide range of product lines and prices and aims to increase the global market share of its BD products from 20 percent currently to 50 percent by the end of 2008."

It also summarizes some remarks that Sony president and electronics CEO Ryoji Chubachi made recently at a press conference in Taipei.

DVD and BD currently account for about 80 percent and 20 percent, respectively, of global demand for movie discs, Chubachi indicated. The new BD devices to be offered by Sony include models integrating an HD LCD TV with BD recording functionality, Chubachi pointed out.

The reporter then adds:

"Sony has relied mainly on the PlayStation 3 (PS3) to promote BD, and sales of the game console will increase along with the offering by top Hollywood studios of new BD movies, Chubachi noted. However, Sony will extend its BD promotion from the current focus on the PS3 and BD players/recorders to IT devices, Chubachi pointed out."

Perhaps something was lost in the translation, but 50 percent seems ridiculous at this point, especially with most Blu-ray players still costing north of $400. Even the 80-20 figure doesn't seem right, but maybe I'm too North American focused. What do you guys think? Am I incorrect, is Mr. Chubachi, or is the Digtimes reporter just not telling the story correctly?

Mozilla Firefox's share of the enterprise desktop market has reached 18 percent, according to a new Forrester report noted by ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley.

This number will seem low to those who have seen higher numbers elsewhere (for example, as high as 30 percent in Europe). This simply reflects the bias of the report toward formal enterprise adoption, a route that Mozilla has explicitly not taken. Basically, Firefox is not an alternate universe into which you will be banished.

Forrester's report states:

Mozilla's share of the browser market rose steadily throughout 2007, only slowing for the quarter directly following the release of Internet Explorer 7 (IE 7) in late 2006. Adoption in the enterprise nearly doubled to 18 percent by the end of 2007, but large-scale, companywide deployments are not yet typical. Mozilla continues to expend little energy on wooing IT managers to formally adopt Firefox....

And yet it's getting them, all the same.

Why?