Microsoft Bing is taking an increasingly higher share of the US search engine market, new figures reveal.
According to the latest data from internet market research firm Nielsen, it held a 10.7 per cent share in August.
With this representing growth of 22 per cent from the previous month, Bing is now the fastest-growing search engine.
Google still maintains a significant lead over its rivals, but only increased its share of the market by 2.6 per cent between July and August.
Bing has been mooted as a potential rival to Google by many industry commentators and the latest figures suggest it is heading in this direction.
Stefan Weitz, director of Bing, told the Times this week that Microsoft was considering ways that it can make the search engine more relevant and responsive to European markets.
"We don't think that the ten blue links is always the right model," he told the newspaper, adding that changes could be made this autumn.
Earlier this week, Microsoft announced that it will start allowing users to browse search results in both picture and word form.
