Differences Across Device Usage in Search Engine Advertising

Internet And Mobile Use In Germany

Germany has a population of just above 82 million. The percentage of households with Internet access is considerable with 90.3%. The usage of mobile devices is similarly high, mobile telephone subscriptions per 100 inhabitants are, for example, 116.71 (ITU, 2017). In congruence with the increased Internet usage, Germans tend to do more and more shopping online. Thus, e-commerce revenue has seen continuing increase in double-digit percentage in recent years. In 2016, the total spent through the Internet for products and services in business-to-consumer (b2c) amounted to 44.2 billion Euro, an increase of 10.8% from 39.9 billion Euro in 2015 (Statista, 2017a). The three biggest product groups measured by revenue in 2016 are (1) apparel (excluding shoes), (2) electronics and telecommunication, and (3) computer hardware and software (BEVH, 2017). Digital services include, for example, downloads of software, audio and video files, tickets for sports events, concerts, and movie theaters, as well as bookings of accommodation and transportation (BVH, 2012).

Search engines are a starting point consumers often use when searching for products and services. In Germany, the search engine market is dominated by Google which accounts for 94.52% of all searches. As displayed in Table 1, Bing has a market share of 4.16% and Yahoo accounts for 0.98% of all search queries served in Germany in 2016.

Source: Statista, 2017c