Yahoo! continued to lead the online search market in Japan in December 2007, new research suggests.

According to figures produced by comScore, the US-based search engine experienced 42.1 million visitors during December alone last year.

Meanwhile, rival Google came in second position, securing visits from 32.3 million Japanese internet users, while Microsoft - in third place - saw 29.1 million people access its sites.

Analysis of Japanese web rankings in October revealed a similar pattern, with Yahoo! sites attracting 41.3 million visitors, while Google and Microsoft had 31.7 million and 29.4 million respectively. (source)