U.S. internet giant Google has commanded record 33.5 percent of the search ad market in South Korea last year, eating into the shares of dominant domestic platform operators like Naver Corp.

According to NHN Data on Thursday, the average traffic from Google Ads’ search engine reached a record high of 33.5 percent as of last year. Traffic measures the number of visitors that arrive at a Web site through a search ad.

Google Ads’ shares have been on a rise in recent years to 25.4 percent in the end of 2021 from 16.4 percent in 2019 and 20.8 percent in 2020.

Domestic players, in the meantime, have seen their shares decline.

Naver accounted for 63.2 percent last year, sinking from above 70 percent a year ago. Naver, in particular, gave up top position to Google Ads in site search ads that fell to 32.6 percent.

“It is difficult to compare search ad traffic by item as the external data does not include traffic from Naver Smart Store and Smart Place that has seen huge growth recently,” said an unnamed official from Naver.

The average traffic from Kakao Corp., another platform giant in Korea, fell to 2.6 percent last year, data showed.

By Ko Min-suh and Han Yubin

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]