---
title: "Google Docs & Spreadsheets Usage Increasing – But is Google Apps the Market Leader?"
date: 2007-12-06
author: "Richard MacManus"
categories:
  - name: "ReadWriteWeb"
    url: "/category/readwriteweb.md"
tags:
  - name: "2007"
    url: "/tag/2007.md"
---

# Google Docs & Spreadsheets Usage Increasing – But is Google Apps the Market Leader?

![](https://web.archive.org/web/20090822211759im_/http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/googleapps_feb07.gif)Yesterday we published a [2007 review of the Web Office market](https://web.archive.org/web/20090822211759/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/web_office_2007_year_in_review.php). In that post I concluded that Google Apps was the leader in this space – but this point was disputed in the comments by CentralDesktop’s Isaac Garcia, who wrote that “real traction in the business world is yet to be seen or proven for Google \[Apps\].” This may well be true, but today Compete provided some very useful [stats around Google Docs](https://web.archive.org/web/20090822211759/http://blog.compete.com/2007/12/06/google-docs-spreadsheets/).

The following image shows a rise in usage from June ’07 till October. Overall Google D&S; had an 84% year-over-year increase.

Compete attributes the leap in June onwards to a June user interface overhaul for Google D&S; and “subsequent intense marketing”.

Compete also studied the average time on site for Google D&S;, which was flat (if not slightly down) during the same period June-Oct:

However as Compete commenter Otis Gospodnetic noted, Google D&S; can be slow at times – so this could be one of the reasons for the high ‘time spent on site’ initially.

## Conclusion

I don’t think Isaac will be satisfied with these stats, because it was almost certainly mostly a consumer audience that Compete’s data comes from; and Isaac’s point was that we can’t prove Google Apps is a market leader in the enterprise/SMB space. Nevertheless, these stats do show that Google D&S; had a big jump in usage in June and so they are probably the leading online word processing tool right now.

However I have asked Compete if they can provide us with comparative stats, showing Google D&S; against say Zoho Writer and/or ThinkFree Docs. I will update this post if I get more data from Compete.

*Originally published on ReadWriteWeb ([archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20020204040018/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_docs_spreadsheets_usage_increasing.php))*