Yahoo! is number one in Japan

1st October 2007

Yahoo! is still the number one search engine in Japan, according to research released this week.

Data analysed by comScore shows that the web portal received over 40 million hits in August.

This places it at pole position in the Japanese market, somewhat contrary to general world trends which see Yahoo! taking second place behind Google.

In Japan, Google is second to Yahoo!, with just over 30 million hits, and is only marginally more popular than MSN, the Microsoft-owned web portal.

"Since our first official ranking in June, we have seen Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft sites remain unchanged as the top three properties in Japan," said Maru Sato, managing director of comScore Japan.

Microsoft is stepping up its efforts in the search engine war, recently unveiling an updated version of its MSN Live Search facility.

A spokesman said it would rival anything Google has to offer.