Last year, 91% of the global market for mobile search went to Google, according to IDC. What's more, while search is 47% of the desktop ad market, it comprises 70% of the mobile ad market. "What's interesting is that number has gone up, not down," says Karsten Weide, program VP, media and entertainment for IDC. "We thought it would normalize, but that's not what's happened."
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While Weide expects search to approach desktop levels within a few years, for the foreseeable future, mobile advertising will primarily be about search -- and search will be controlled by Google.
Why? Odds are your smartphone comes with Google as its default search engine. In the third quarter, Google's Android and Apple's iOS comprised 85% of the smartphone market, according to IDC. Both use Google.
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True, you can swap out Google for another search engine, but Weide estimates that three-quarters of users don't do that. Moreover, "Google is the Kleenex of search," he says. No matter how good the competition is, consumers will continue to believe that Google is the gold standard.
But while Google has a lock on search at the moment, there are a few (unlikely) scenarios in which Google could lose its substantial lead. Such an occurrence is hardly unthinkable in tech -- remember when Yahoo dominated search and Apple looked hopeless compared to Microsoft?
1. Microsoft Makes Serious Inroads
Microsoft is looking to its Windows 8 phones not only to crack the mobile market but to give its Bing search engine a greater share of mobile search, as well. In 2011, Bing's share was just 2% of the mobile search market, even though the company claimed 10.8% of the desktop search market in 2011, according to eMarketer.
However, Microsoft has some reason to hope. For one, its Windows 8 phones have been well-reviewed and boast differentiating features, including a customizable interface that may earn more of a market niche. Second, Weide says mobile carriers are frustrated by Apple and Google's hold on the smartphone market and are eager to help a new entrant along as a power check.
For those reasons, Weide predicts Bing will have a bigger share of the mobile search market by next summer.
"Bigger" is a relative term, though. If Windows 8 phones break into the high single digits or even the low double digits by next summer, it will be considered a huge hit. But "we're talking about a small market share," says Roger Entner, an analyst with Recon Analytics. "Who cares?"
Entner says the only way that Bing could be a real counterbalance in mobile search is if Microsoft agrees to load Bing as the default search engine for iPhones, an unlikely event.
Stefan Weitz, the senior director at Bing, says it's up to Apple and customers to decide whether Bing should be the default on the iPhone.
2. Apple Develops Its Own Search Engine
Another possibility is that Apple kicks Google off the iPhone. This is a more plausible scenario, considering the company's recent moves. Two Google apps -- YouTube and Maps -- are no longer standard on the iPhone. If Apple developed its own search engine, it would instantly capture 17% of the market. (Android had 68% market share of the global market in the third quarter, according to IDC.)
Speculation about an Apple search engine rose after the company hired William Stasior, an Amazon executive, to take over Siri in October. Stasior had previously worked on Amazon's A9 search engine.
While Apple is doubtlessly eager to boot Google off its mobile OS, though, the case against doing so can be summed up in one word: Maps. Apple suffered serious PR damage in September when it replaced Google Maps with its own, vastly inferior Maps app. One can only imagine the outcry if Apple swapped out Google for a mediocre or poor search engine. All the more reason to hold its nose and make a deal with Microsoft.
3. Android Hardware Makers Swap Out Google
Imagine if Google's hardware partners decided to offer another search engine instead of Google. Sound unlikely? Well, it already happened. Back in September, review units of Amazon's new Kindle Fires sported Bing as the device's default search engine. Though users could switch in Google (or Yahoo) if they wanted, as Weide notes, that's fairly unlikely.
Weide says Samsung could use its considerable market heft to make a similar move. Doing so would likely strain relations with Google. Officially, Google does not bar any of its partners from using whichever search engine they like, but since it is providing the OS for free, doing so would cut off a revenue source -- advertising -- for the company. "That's the whole point of Android," Entner says.
4. Yahoo Makes a Big Comeback
The biggest longshot of all is that Yahoo somehow returns to its glory days and begins making serious inroads into mobile search. Right now, the company has about 2% of the market, but has no mobile OS of its own and hence no leverage to convince hardware makers to offer it.
Not all is lost, though. Weide believes that if Yahoo were to offer a truly superior mobile search app, consumers would seek it out. The trouble is, it doesn't at the moment. "A lot of consumers would go the extra mile if Yahoo had a good product," he says, "but it's not out there."
Whether new CEO Marissa Mayer will be able to resurrect Yahoo is, of course, a $60 million question. So far, Mayer hasn't articulated a mobile strategy for the company. Yahoo declined to be interviewed for this article.
5. Voice-Controlled Search Reshuffles the Market
Of course, nothing remains static for long in the tech industry. While "mobile search" conjures images of consumers tapping on their smartphones, many are talking to them instead. If the technology improves, that may become the norm. At the moment, Weide believes Siri is not ready for prime time. "Right now, Siri is a gimmick because it doesn't work that well," he says. "Over time, it might have an impact."
Google's voice search is similarly klugey, though the technology keeps improving. However, there's always the distant possibility that a new entrant will come out of nowhere and take a significant share of the market.
How does advertising fit into this picture, though? Imagine talking to your phone only to hear a 10-second ad before getting your search result. "Stay tuned for spoken commercials in search results," Weide says. "They have to make money somehow."
6. Mobile Search Undergoes a Radical Reinvention
Perhaps the most likely scenario in which Google loses control of mobile search? If the notion of "mobile search" is radically redefined. Microsoft's Weitz predicts that by 2015, 40% of searches will come from within apps. Already, he says, consumers are executing searches via Open Table and Flipboard, rather than through traditional search engines.
In such a future, it will be tough for anyone -- Google included -- to make money. "One of the key challenges is it's really hard to monetize," Weitz says, referring to app-based searches.
The waters get further muddied if you view search the way Weitz does: as a chain of events rather than a "single query and get out" action. Imagine, for instance, sitting on your couch and viewing a cooking show on TV. "You could point [a device] at the TV and say 'Bookmark that recipe,'" Weitz says. Since your phone understands what you're looking at, it could then procure the ingredients and have them delivered to your house. "You're going from intent to task completion," Weitz says.
Such a vision blurs the line between advertising, retail and even mobile. After all, what's so "mobile" about sitting on your couch? But it's a future that no one -- not even Google -- has any claims on.
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