DuckDuckGo Usage Stats for 2023
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DuckDuckGo Usage Stats for 2023

Brian Dean

Written by Brian Dean

DuckDuckGo Usage Stats

DuckDuckGo is a search engine with one main USP: it doesn’t collect private user data.

Launched in September 2008, the service hit a milestone of 1 billion searches in 2013.

Since then, DuckDuckGo has continued to gain market traction.

Today, it registers an average of nearly 100 million search queries a day.

So how big is DuckDuckGo in the search engine market?

Here’s a summary of what you’ll find out on this page:

Key DuckDuckGo Stats

  • The number of all-time DuckDuckGo searches exceeds 71.9 billion.
  • DuckDuckGo handles an average of 98.79 million search queries a day.
  • Worldwide, DuckDuckGo claims a 0.66% share of the search engine market. In the US, it holds a 2.45% share.
  • DuckDuckGo is the 2nd most popular search engine on mobile devices in the US.
  • 124 employees work at DuckDuckGo.

DuckDuckGo daily searches

On average, DuckDuckGo processes 98.79 million search queries a day. Daily search activity has increased 1.86x over the previous year, up from an average of 52.95 million searches in February 2020.

DuckDuckGo processes 98.79 million search queries a day

The average number of daily queries on DuckDuckGo has grown 9.17x since January 2015.

DuckDuckGo daily searches

We’ve charted average daily DuckDuckGo searches since January 2011:

Date Searches
January 2011 170 thousand
July 2011 246 thousand
January 2012 630 thousand
July 2012 1.38 million
January 2013 1.64 million
July 2013 3.4 million
January 2014 4.38 million
July 2014 4.95 million
January 2015 7.14 million
July 2015 8.65 million
January 2016 10.6 million
July 2016 10.77 million
January 2017 13.47 million
July 2017 15.65 million
January 2018 21.13 million
July 2018 23.53 million
January 2019 34.37 million
July 2019 41.93 million
January 2020 51.96 million
February 2020 52.95 million
July 2020 63.27 million
January 2021 95.27 million
February 2021 98.79 million

Source: DuckDuckGo.

DuckDuckGo annual search queries

Last year, DuckDuckGo reported a total of 23.65 billion processed search queries. The annual volume of searches grew by 56.8% compared to 2019.

DuckDuckGo annual search queries

In fact, DuckDuckGo searches in 2020 surpassed the total of all searches made between 2010 and 2017 by 41.26%.

Here’s a table showing the annual number of searches on DuckDuckGo since 2010:

Year Queries
2010 16.41 million
2011 99.35 million
2012 496.24 million
2013 1.03 billion
2014 1.97 billion
2015 3.13 billion
2016 4.09 billion
2017 5.91 billion
2018 9.2 billion
2019 15.08 billion
2020 23.65 billion

Source: DuckDuckGo.

Global DuckDuckGo market share

Across all platforms worldwide, DuckDuckGo claims a 0.63% search engine market share. That makes it the 10th most popular search engine globally.

DuckDuckGo claims a 0.63% search engine market share

The DuckDuckGo market share has been consistently increasing since 2013, at which point it held just 0.01% of the global market.

Global DuckDuckGo market share

Here’s a table showing DuckDuckGo’s worldwide market share since 2012:

Year Market share
2012 0.01%
2013 0.01%
2014 0.04%
2015 0.11%
2016 0.12%
2017 0.18%
2018 0.29%
2019 0.42%
2020 0.49%
2021 0.63%

Source: Statcounter Global Stats.

Global DuckDuckGo desktop market share

DuckDuckGo has a 0.88% share of the worldwide desktop search market. This makes it the 4th most popular search engine among desktop users, behind Google, Bing and Yahoo.

Global DuckDuckGo desktop market share

The DuckDuckGo share of the desktop search market has grown 2.31x since 2018, up from 0.38%.

Here’s a table showing DuckDuckGo’s share of the global desktop search market since 2012:

Year Market share
2012 0.01%
2013 0.01%
2014 0.05%
2015 0.13%
2016 0.15%
2017 0.3%
2018 0.38%
2019 0.5%
2020 0.64%
2021 0.88%

Source: Statcounter Global Stats.

Global DuckDuckGo mobile market share

DuckDuckGo claims a 0.48% share of the worldwide mobile search engine market. It ranks 5th, behind Google, Baidu, Yahoo and Yandex.

Global DuckDuckGo mobile market share

The mobile market has proved harder for DuckDuckGo to crack than the desktop market. DuckDuckGo holds almost twice as much of the desktop market (0.88%). Nonetheless, mobile market share is consistently increasing.

Here’s a table showing the growth in DuckDuckGo’s mobile market share since 2014:

Year Market share
2014 0.03%
2015 0.05%
2016 0.06%
2017 0.08%
2018 0.19%
2019 0.33%
2020 0.38%
2021 0.48%

Source: Statcounter Global Stats.

DuckDuckGo US market share

In the US, DuckDuckGo claims a 2.45% share of the search engine market across all device types. DuckDuckGo is the 4th most used search engine in the country, after Google, Bing and Yahoo.

DuckDuckGo US market share

Yahoo, the closest competitor, is only marginally ahead: it holds a 2.99% share of the US search market.

DuckDuckGo’s market share (in %) has grown 4.71x since 2017.

Here’s a table showing DuckDuckGo’s share of the US search engine market since 2012:

Year Market share
2012 0.02%
2013 0.05%
2014 0.12%
2015 0.32%
2016 0.34%
2017 0.52%
2018 0.69%
2019 1.15%
2020 1.61%
2021 2.45%

Source: Statcounter Global Stats.

DuckDuckGo US desktop market share

DuckDuckGo has a 2.41% search engine market share among desktop users in the US.

DuckDuckGo US desktop market share

DuckDuckGo only hit the milestone of a 1% market share in 2019. It has since more than doubled its share (up 2.19x).

We’ve charted DuckDuckGo desktop US market share since 2012:

Year Market share
2012 0.02%
2013 0.06%
2014 0.14%
2015 0.37%
2016 0.39%
2017 0.62%
2018 0.67%
2019 1.1%
2020 1.63%
2021 2.41%

Source: Statcounter Global Stats.

DuckDuckGo US mobile market share

DuckDuckGo has a 2.42% share of the US mobile search market. This makes it the second most popular mobile search engine in the US. Only Google is more popular, with a near-monopolizing 94.36% market share.

DuckDuckGo US mobile market share

Globally, DuckDuckGo has a mobile market share of just 0.48%. But the search engine has made reasonable inroads into the US mobile market.

DuckDuckGo claimed 2nd place from Yahoo (1.91%) in 2021.

Here’s a table with the DuckDuckGo US mobile market share since 2013:

Year Market share
2013 0.01%
2014 0.08%
2015 0.21%
2016 0.22%
2017 0.33%
2018 0.59%
2019 1.02%
2020 1.52%
2021 2.42%

DuckDuckGo app downloads

DuckDuckGo offers mobile browsing apps for both iOS and Android.

The DuckDuckGo Privacy Browser for iPhone users was downloaded 400,000 times in February 2021 alone.

The Android app receives even more downloads. It was installed 800,000 times in the past month. All-time, the number of downloads exceeds 10 million.

The DuckDuckGo app has excellent reviews on both the App Store and Google Play, with a cross-platform average of 4.85/5.

Source: DuckDuckGo, Sensor Tower.

How many people use the DuckDuckGo Chrome extension?

DuckDuckGo has an extension available for the Google Chrome browser. The tool helps block hidden trackers and check website privacy grades.

The Chrome extension has more than 5 million users.

DuckDuckGo Chrome extension has more than 5 million users

Source: Chrome web store.

DuckDuckGo funding

DuckDuckGo has raised $13 million across 2 funding rounds. Its latest round (Series B), announced in August 2018, raised $10 million.

DuckDuckGo has 8 investors, 7 of which invested during the initial Series A round in 2011.

Here’s a table with DuckDuckGo funding data:

Date, Funding round Amount
October 2011, Series A $3 million
August 2018, Series B $10 million

Source: Pitchbook, Crunchbase, CB Insights.

DuckDuckGo post-money valuation

As of the last funding round (August 2018), DuckDuckGo was valued at an estimated $74.8 million. The valuation has grown 3.77x since 2011.

Here’s a table showing DuckDuckGo post-money valuation since 2011:

Date, Funding round Post-money valuation
2011 $19.82 million
2018 $74.8 million

Source: CB Insights.

DuckDuckGo donations

DuckDuckGo makes donations to organizations related to internet privacy.

The company donated a total of $750,000 to 15 organizations in 2020. Its largest donation ($200,000) was allocated to the Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP).

DuckDuckGo has donated $2,673,549 since 2011.

DuckDuckGo donations

We’ve prepared a table showing DuckDuckGo donation information since 2011:

Year Amount (no. of companies)
2011 $1,909 (6)
2012 $11,640 (7)
2013 $20,000 (7)
2014 $40,000 (6)
2015 $125,000 (5)
2016 $225,000 (9)
2017 $400,000 (16)
2018 $500,000 (21)
2019 $600,000 (11)
2020 $750,000 (15)

Source: DuckDuckGo.

How many people work at DuckDuckGo?

DuckDuckGo has 124 employees, working remotely from more than 15 countries. Headcount has increased by 48.19% over the last year, with 41 new employees joining the remote team.

How many people work at DuckDuckGo?

The number of DuckDuckGo employees has increased 2.75x since 2018.

Here’s a table showing the number of DuckDuckGo employees since March 2018:

Date Employees
March 2018 45
March 2019 59
March 2020 83
March 2021 124

Source: DuckDuckGo.

Conclusion

That’s it for my list of DuckDuckGo statistics in 2023. The search engine is enjoying reasonably strong growth, especially among pro-privacy users.

From an almost non-existent market share a few years ago, DuckDuckGo is now the 2nd most popular mobile search engine in the US. So it will be interesting to see what the future holds.

Despite the strong growth, DuckDuckGo still faces the significant barrier of Google’s worldwide search engine dominance.

Do you think DuckDuckGo can make further market inroads?

I’d also love to hear your feedback:

What do you think of this DuckDuckGo stats roundup? Do you think there’s more information to be added?

Just drop a comment below and I’ll be sure to read it.

1 Comments

  1. DDG looks just like Google did when it first arrived 20 years ago. Google was successful then because the competition gave poor results and were stuffed with ads.

    Now Google give awful results with the same sites in every vertical at the top of the results for just about any search term, no matter how irrelevant their page is for that term. It seems to be one big advert with generic results hidden away at the bottom.

    If both DDG and Google started up on a level playing field today Google would quickly cease to exist. Hopefully legislators will break the cosy monopoly that Google has set up for itself and more sites like DDG can flourish.

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