Troubling news for Microsoft (MSFT). Hitwise’s latest numbers are the second set of metrics from a Web analytics firm showing Bing’s market share in decline. Last week, StatCounter claimed Bing’s share of the U.S. search market in September had slipped to 8.5 percent from 9.6 percent in August.

As I noted then, while a month of slight decline might herald the beginning of a trend, it certainly doesn’t guarantee one–especially in search, where surges and lulls in market share are quite common. That said, this is the second set of data suggesting that Bing’s traffic may be leveling out. Whether this reflects the end of the big Bing marketing campaign or falling consumer interest remains to be seen.

Incidentally, Microsoft’s new search partner, Yahoo (YHOO), also saw its search share slip for the month, according to Hitwise. Yahoo claimed 16.96 percent in August. In September, it claimed 16.38 percent. Meanwhile, Google (GOOG) took 71.08 percent share for the month, up from 70.24 percent in August.

New metrics from Web analytics firm StatCounter show Bing’s share of the U.S. search market in September falling to 8.5 percent from 9.6 percent in August. Its share of the global market declined as well, slipping to 3.25 percent from 3.58 percent.

Microsoft’s (MSFT) new search partner, Yahoo (YHOO), also suffered a decline. Its market share fell to 9.4 percent from 10.50 percent in the U.S. and to 4.37 percent from 4.84 abroad. Meanwhile, Google’s (GOOG) September share rose to 80 percent from 77.8 percent in the U.S. and to 90.54 percent from 90 percent globally. (See chart below; click to enlarge.)

“The trend has been downwards for Bing since mid August,” StatCounter CEO Aodhan Cullen said in a statement. “The wheels haven’t fallen off but the underlying trend must be a little worrying for Microsoft.”

Mmm, I doubt it. While a month of slight decline might herald the beginning of a trend, it certainly doesn’t guarantee one, especially in search, where surges and declines in market share are quite common. Furthermore, we haven’t yet seen search metrics from Nielsen, comScore (SCOR), and Hitwise. And all three showed Bing gaining share in August, a month that Statcounter claimed shows the beginning of a downward trend.

According to the research outfit, Mac sales for July and August are up seven percent year-over-year. If this proves true, Apple (AAPL) should sell somewhere around 2.75 and 2.8 million Macs in the quarter, which would match or slightly exceed Wall Street consensus estimates. IPod sales should meet estimates as well, though NPD reports that year-over-year sales during July and August were down 16 percent.

Munster figures Apple will sell 9.5 million to 10.5 million iPods for the quarter. The Street is looking for 10 million, and with the launch of the newest nano, Apple will likely meet this goal.

“We are expecting reacceleration in the final month of the quarter given the new iPod nanos that shipped on 9/9,” Munster explained. “Also, iPod international is growing faster than domestic. In other words, we believe the actual reported numbers for iPod will be slightly better than NPD would suggest.”

Today brings another Palm-related research note, this one from Pacific Crest analyst James Faucette. He claims that Pre sales are “robust.” According to Faucette’s channel checks, Palm is selling about 40,000 Pres per week, a “normalized” sell-through rate that he says will continue through August.

So who’s right? Piecyk or Faucette? Who knows? Until Palm (PALM) and Sprint (S) go on record with real sales metrics, we’ll have to use our imaginations. Which is pretty much what all these analysts appear to be doing right now, anyway. Honestly, they might as well be issuing research notes on jelly bean jar guessing games.

Oh, and for what it’s worth, Palm and Sprint are not willing to release sales numbers right now. Reached for comment, Sprint told me, “We’re excited by the response to Palm Pre. Demand continues to be strong, and we are working closely with our partners at Palm to meet the needs of every customer as quickly as possible.” And Palm told me me to call Sprint…

J.P. Morgan’s Imran Khan offered an early look at market researcher comScore’s May 2009 core search volume and market share metrics for the U.S. this afternoon (to be publicly released tomorrow) and they show what search metrics always seem to show these days: Google’s share of the domestic market growing at the expense of its rivals (click on tables below to enlarge).

According to comScore (SCOR), Google’s (GOOG) share of the domestic search market rose to 65 percent in May, up from 64.2 percent in April. Its core search volume grew 42.5 percent, far exceeding the 40.6 growth in posted in the month prior. Meanwhile, Yahoo’s (YHOO) domestic core search market share slipped a bit, falling to 20.1 percent in May from 20.4 percent in April. Its core search volume for the month grew by 29.5 percent, down from 39.3 percent.

And what of Microsoft (MSFT)? It, too, suffered a decline. Its share of the domestic core search market fell to eight percent in May from 8.2 percent in April. Core search growth was also down at 24.9 percent from 25.7 percent in April. Clearly, Microsoft is still struggling to gain purchase in the search market. But, while these data don’t yet show it, Microsoft may have found some traction. As I noted last week, Bing has been generating a fair bit of interest, and that bodes well for some improvement in its position in the search market.

Sources with knowledge of the situation said the company is expected to demonstrate it at our D: All Things Digital conference next week.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is scheduled to appear onstage at the event, a three-day event that hosts top players from the tech and media industries in interviews by AllThingsD.com Co-executive Editors Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher.

Code-named “Kumo,” the search engine is a major effort by Microsoft (MSFT) to raise its hand to table stakes in the battle for search market share with Google (GOOG)–something it desperately needs to do.

According to the latest metrics from comScore (SCOR), Google’s share of the search market rose to 64.2 percent in April from 63.7 percent in March and from 61.6 percent from a year ago. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s market share for the month topped out at 8.2 percent, down from 8.3 percent in March and 9.1 percent a year ago.

“Over the course of the past year, we have seen use of mobile Internet evolve from an occasional activity to being a daily part of people’s lives,” said comScore’s Mark Donovan. “This underscores the growing importance of the mobile medium as consumers become more reliant on their mobile devices to access time-sensitive and utilitarian information. Social networking and blogging have emerged as very popular daily uses of the mobile Web and these activities are growing at a torrid pace,” observed Donovan. “We also note that much of the growth in news and information usage is driven by the increased popularity of downloaded applications, such as those offered for the iPhone, and by text-based searches.”

Obviously, the mobile browsing experience hasn’t yet matched its wired counterpart in quality. But clearly it’s getting there. And right now, it’s at the “decent enough” stage to woo the audience that will drive its further and more rapid improvement.

Just why Microsoft made that determination is unclear. What could have possibly happened to make it not just abandon adCenter Analytics, but to refer clients to rival services, including Google Analytics?

And that’s exactly what consumers are looking for, according to Google (GOOG).

“We’ve seen quite an increase in queries for things like discounts and bargains and things like that,” Google CEO Eric Schmidt told “Meet The Press” this past weekend. “And we know that shoppers are using the Internet to get better pricing.”

Growth is primary, revenue is secondary.”

– Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

Good thing Facebook is committed to growth over profits because according to the latest metrics from Hitwise Intelligence, growth is slowing. While traffic to the site in the United Kingdom did increase by 4 percent between August and September this year, growth is down from 50 percent over the same period last year. Facebook’s annual growth rate is slowing as well. The site grew 88 percent in the UK between September 2007 and 2008–a strong showing, but quite a bit weaker than the 2,905 percent growth Facebook managed in the year prior.

Could it be that Facebook, like other social networks that have gone before it, is nearing its saturation point? Is enthusiasm for the ironically named “Funwall” and the endless conga-line of “You’re A …!” widgets finally wearing off?

An impressive showing. That said, NPD’s metrics don’t include corporate/enterprise mobile phone sales, which likely favor the Blackberry above all. Presumably, the iPhone’s ranking would have been quite a bit different if it did. Still, 17 percent of the U.S. smartphone market is quite an achievement.