SAN FRANCISCO - GOOGLE is king of Internet search worldwide but rivals in China and South Korea have become powerhouses in their respective countries, a comScore study revealed on Tuesday.

The data was collected by the US Internet research firm in August to give its first global picture of the popularity of online search firms battling for devotees whose visits lead to precious advertising revenues.

The study found that more than 750 million people, an estimated 95 per cent of the worldwide Internet audience, conducted a cumulative 61 billion searches in August.

Google websites were used for 37.1 billion of the searches; with the bulk of them made on the California firm's search engine and five billion of them done at its video-sharing website YouTube, according to comScore.

Yahoo

US-based Yahoo was the second most used online search firm, handling 8.5 billion queries, the study concluded.

Chinese search engine Baidu ranked third, handling a billion more searches than fourth-place Microsoft's MSN and Live Search services that handled approximately 2.2 billion queries.

South Korean search firm Naver, owned by NHN Corporation, finished out the top-five list with two billion searches, according to comScore.

Asia-Pacific region

The study indicates that the Asia-Pacific region including China, Japan and Indian accounted for 20.3 billion searches by a total of 258 million people.

'Seeing Asian search engines like China's Baidu.com and (South) Korea's NHN ranked alongside Google and Yahoo underscores the fact that search has become a truly global phenomenon,' said comScore vice president of international markets Bob Ivins. 'The continued development of search in international markets will undoubtedly present compelling opportunities for savvy marketers on a global scale.'

Internet users in Europe racked up the second highest number of searches: 16 billion by 206 million people, the study determined. Middle East-Africa appeared to be the least developed Internet region with the fewest searches, two billion, by 30 million people.

Google has reigned as the undisputed leader of online search and its stock price burst past the US$600 (S$888) per share mark on Monday. -- AFP