Published on: April 27, 2025 / update from: April 27, 2025 - Author: Konrad Wolfenstein
Google under pressure: Loss of search queries to chatt and falling market shares in Germany (below 74 percent) - Image: Xpert.digital
Market change: Why Google loses market shares in Germany - is the zenith of the search giant exceeded?
Google under pressure: Loss of search queries to chatt and falling market shares in Germany
Google officially admits for the first time that Chatgpt will decrease market shares in the search engine giant, while at the same time the desktop market share in Germany has dropped to less than 74 percent. This development indicates a slow but constant shift in the digital search landscape, even if Google continues to dominate clearly. So far, the losses mainly affect non-commercial areas, but could challenge Google's core business in the long term.
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Google's admission: Loss of search queries to Chatgpt
A high-ranking Google manager has now officially confirmed what industry experts already suspect: Chatgpt wins at the expense of Google user. Sissie Hsiao, Vice President and General Manager for Gemini Apps and Google Assistant admitted in a report on “The Information” that Chatgpt had mainly deducted searches from Google's areas of “Homework and mathematics”. This encore is remarkable, since Google has always emphasized the superiority of his search engine.
However, HSIAO relativized the economic importance of these losses. Such search queries would not ensure large advertising sales - an important criterion for Google, since search ads are still the most important source of income for the company. Specifically, she emphasized: "So far we have not seen any cannibalization of commercial inquiries or [inquiries with] commercial intent". This indicates that Google does not currently see its core business in danger.
Nevertheless, this situation could change. With the new checkout option in chatt, the platform could soon also become more attractive for shopping and e-commerce, which could also affect commercial search queries in the long term.
Growth of Chatgpt and its meaning
The active users of Chatgpt are continuously increasing. From 100 million weekly active users in November 2023, the number has grown to an impressive 400 million in February 2025. As a direct comparison: Chatgpt has around 160 million daily active users, while Google's Ki-Tool Gemini only comes to around 35 million.
Despite this impressive growth, Google Search remains the undisputed market leader with over 2 billion a month and about 1.5 billion active users. Google recorded more than 5 trillion searches in 2024, which corresponds to about 14 billion inquiries per day and a market share of over 93 percent.
Falling market shares in Germany
The development in Germany is particularly striking, where Google's market share on the desktop market continuously drops. According to the current figures from Statcounter, the market share was only 73.88 percent in March 2025. This represents a significant decline and is an indicator of the slow erosion of Google's market dominance, at least in the desktop segment.
The main professional of this development is Microsoft Bing, which was able to expand its market share in Germany to 16.71 percent. Other search engines play a subordinate role with significantly lower proportions: Yahoo! reaches 3.55 percent, Duckduckgo 2.19 percent and Yandex 1.76 percent.
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Different development on different platforms
Interestingly, a completely different picture is shown on mobile devices. Here Google continues to keep a dominant market share of over 90 percent. This discrepancy can be explained by several factors:
- Many smartphones are based on Google's Android operating system
- Google has a lucrative deal with Apple, the Google relies on iPhones as a standard search engine
- The usage habits on mobile devices favor fast, direct search queries
A similar pattern is shown on the worldwide level: In the desktop search engine market worldwide, Google was the market leader in March 2025 with a market share of 79.1 percent, while the mobile market share was 94 percent.
Change in search habits and new competition
A recent study by Semrush shows an interesting development: Some websites now receive more visits via chatt than on Google. This particularly affects industries such as online services, education and mass media. It is often not just about the pure number of visitors, but about visibility and brand perception.
The way in which people are looking for information is fundamentally changing. In contrast to Google, around 70 percent of the prompt at Chatgpt cannot be easily classified in the classic search categories “Information”, “Navigation” and “Transaction”. AI-based communication creates new usage scenarios that go beyond the traditional search function.
Different strengths and weaknesses
Google and chatt have different strengths and weaknesses that influence their respective market position:
- Chatgpt offers direct, conversational answers without advertising and distraction
- Google benefits from its infrastructure and decades of experience in the provision of information
- With 2.9 watt hours per request, Chatgpt almost consumes ten times a Google search request (0.3 watt hours)
- Google has an enormous distribution advantage through the integration into numerous platforms and devices
At the end of 2024, Chatgpt started a direct attack on Google's core business with its new search functionality. This function offers real -time access to web information and provides conversational answers with direct quotations - a format that is particularly attractive for younger users.
Google reactions and strategies
Google has worked intensively since Chatgpt's publication at the end of 2022 to obtain the lead from Openaai. The company hurry in a hurry, such as “Lens” and integrated AI functions into its existing search engine.
However, the path was not without setbacks. Alphabet, Google's parent company, lost about $ 100 billion in market value after his chatbot bard (later renamed Gemini) had spread incorrect information in an advertising video. This episode illustrates the challenges associated with the integration of AI in search engines.
Google plays its greatest trump card: the enormous range of his search engine. While Chatgpt is an independent app that has to be actively downloaded and opened, Google's AI functions are integrated directly into the search, which is used every day by 1.5 billion people.
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Future of the search: Content strategies for AI systems
The development of the search engine market is at a turning point. AI-supported services like Chatgpt change the way people are looking for information while traditional search engines are trying to adapt and protect their dominance.
If Google, as required by the US Ministry of Justice, has to be smashed and, for example, have to separate from the Chrome browser, this could lead to a further decline in the market share. The search landscape could also mess up the growing importance of AI agents.
For websites and content manufacturers, this development means that you should no longer just optimize for Google. Visibility in AI systems such as chatt is becoming increasingly important. For more visibility in chatt, it is recommended to be as versatile as possible with your own content.
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Google, Chatgpt and the future of the search: What users now need to know
The current developments indicate an evolution of the search market, not to a revolution. Google is slowly losing market shares, but remains the market leader at a large distance. Chatgpt and similar AI services complement traditional search engines, but do not completely replace them.
The loss of search queries to Chatgpt granted by Google is an important indicator of a beginning change, which, however, must be viewed in a differentiated manner. So far, those affected have been mainly non-commercial nature and therefore have limited economic effects on Google.
The falling desktop market shares in Germany show that users are increasingly willing to try out alternatives to Google. Nevertheless, thanks to its dominance on mobile devices and its deep integration into the digital ecosystem, Google remains in a strong position.
For users, this development means a larger selection and potentially better viewfinder experiences through the increased competition. Companies and content manufacturers have to adapt their strategies and, in addition to traditional search engine optimization, also take visibility in AI systems into account.
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