The new version of Chrome was canceled, Google may even have to divest the browser business from the courts and competitors are nibbling at Search market share. Google’s market power can no longer be taken for granted.
The numbers say it. Google’s revenue from advertising activities has never grown as slowly as last autumn, just ten percent. There has even been a small decline in advertising turnover on Google Network.
Not that it matters much to shareholders, because Alphabet shares have never been as high as they are now. This is partly due to the strong growth of YouTube and new activities such as Cloud: +35%, Subscriptions, Platforms and Devices: +28%. Nevertheless, the core business is under pressure.
From whom? Google is no longer the reliable driver of traffic to websites that it was for two decades. There is little growth left in search engine traffic. AI and social media such as TikTok and LinkedIn are disrupting the advertising arm of the search engine.
In the US, Google’s search advertising market share will fall below 50 percent next year, according to new research from eMarketer.
Smaller advertisers must look at other channels for advertising and traffic. Google has become too expensive. Only the large companies with deep pockets can compete somewhat with the advertising budgets with which parties such as Temu and Shein buy off the market. The Chinese are very keen to acquire a decent market share in the west in the shortest possible time. And they succeed, because at the last count Temu had 4.6 million visitors and customers and Shein 5.8 million.
And what are these new channels for retailers? TikTok is eager to roll out its transactional model widely in Europe. With the associated advertising system, of course, that is inherent to its services.
This will not herald the end of Google, but competition is essential because the market will have choice. That statement alone will of course weigh heavily on governments and federal judges in the defense against monopoly complaints. However, these do not apply to Chrome. Google hardly has any competition in the browser business, despite nice new initiatives such as Arc in Zen.
The US Department of Justice wants to force Google parent company Alphabet to change its web browser through a court Repel Chrome.
A split and mandatory sharing of search data would give the digital market an immense boost. Small search engines like Ecosia and Qwant (Europeans who entered into a pact) receive mountains of new raw materials and the umbilical cord between search, browsing and advertising is cut. The question remains whether this case will be continued under Trump. Trump wants to reform various departments and was previously not in favor of splitting up Google.
In July, Google finally abandoned its plan to remove support for third-party cookies, or advertising cookies, from Chrome. Chrome is a rudderless ship now that the tech company has definitively lost control of its future. The browser maker wanted to remove 3rd party cookie tracking, but the method was not given the green light. Everything remains the same and Chrome is the only major browser that sacrifices the privacy of its users for advertisers who fire their commercial messages at clicking and swiping users.
Photo: Nik Shuliahin , Unsplash
Source: www.emerce.nl
