Bing, the new Microsoft Search Engine has seen some strong early use since its launch and has twice overtaken Yahoo in the usage stakes.

This is according to web analytics company, Statcounter.

While both Bing and Yahoo have tiny market share compared to Google, Bing is reported at 8-9% market share, compared to 12% or so for Yahoo. 

Google still dominates the market, rarely having less than 75%.

Bing and Yahoo are quite similar in their search approach and so it seems unsurprising that Bing has taken most of its early market share from Yahoo. Before Bing, Microsofts previous offering, Windows Live, rarely achieved more than 6% market share.

Statcounter shows Bing outstripping Yahoo on two occasions since its launch. Statcounter results are based on analysis from over 3 million websites. Statcounter is Novena's favourite stats service for small to medium sized companies. It provides great raw usage info and user path analysis.