Amazon Market Share Forecast to Take 3rd Place Behind Duopoly in 2018
Amazon’s growing advertising platform is on track to generate more than $10 billion in revenues over the next year. They are forecasted to garner a 4% market share this year, surpassing both Verizon’s Oath and Microsoft to take third in the ranking after Google and Facebook.
The key to Google’s dominance as the most used search engine is both its ease of use and its ever-presence in Chrome and on mobile devices. While Chrome is the dominant browser, Safari has a significant volume of the US market (31% to Chrome’s 49%).
What this means for marketers: With Google and Facebook’s share of new ad spend declining and 54% of product searches starting with Amazon, the market is poised for a shakeup. Amazon also holds a wealth of purchase data, which will help them to correlate online and offline purchase behaviors, and to contribute to sales attribution solutions. Ecommerce brands will need to take advantage of this retail powerhouse in order to stay competitive.
Amazon, in turn, will need to continue to improve its self-service advertising products and improve support. Their rapid growth upon entry into the marketplace has left them at a disadvantage in terms of development and advertiser support. To continue their current rate of growth, they will need to dedicate more resources to these areas.