Inc. in total U.S. visitors to its Web sites last month for the first time, researcher ComScore Inc. said. Google drew 141.1 million unique visitors in April, putting it ahead of Yahoo's 140.6 million, Reston, Virginia-based ComScore said today in an e-mail. Yahoo rejected a US$47.5 million takeover offer this month from third-place Microsoft Corp.
Google's YouTube video-sharing site and products including the Gmail e-mail service, online calendar and online payments system are attracting users even as they remain less popular than the company's search engine.
Time Warner Inc.'s AOL unit was No. 4 in ComScore's survey, followed by News Corp.'s Fox Interactive Media. Total visitors to U.S. Web sites rose about 7 percent to more than 190.7 million in April from 178.1 million a year ago. Google's audience rose 18 percent, compared with 7 percent at Yahoo, ComScore data shows.
Google, based in Mountain View, California, fell US$6.70, or 1.2 percent, to US$576.30 at 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares have lost 17 percent this year. Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo rose 58 cents to US$27.14 and Microsoft gained 15 cents to US$29.93.
