Net Applications and StatCounter have released their browser market share estimates for May and they surely will cause a discussion how accurate the numbers really are – or can be. Once more, however, both agree that Firefox shows no growth anymore, while Chrome user share appears to be growing. The runner up in the market growth category in May is … Opera. Mozilla may have a growing problem with Firefox and is under increasing pressure to deliver a fantastic Firefox 4.0.

Firefox growth flat

Indeed, it is amazing to see how Firefox’ growth has stalled in a way that could not have been predicted two years ago when Mozilla broke growth records every month. Firefox lost 0.24 points in May and landed at 24.35%, according to Net Applications. It was the eighth consecutive month in which Firefox has posted a market share within the 24% range. StatCounter usually sees Firefox’ share higher, but also noticed a drop in usage in May, from 31.64% to 31.05%. Since August 2009, Firefox’s share has been within 1.15 points, according to StatCounter. It is apparent that Mozilla has a problem. It can’t grow its market share any more, but it is not really dropping either, which may make a decision what to change and what not to change in the upcoming Firefox 4.0 particularly difficult. We will revisit Firefox’ issue further down.

IE drops

Microsoft’s IE continued to decline, by 0.26 points to 59.69% in NetApplications’ estimates. StatCounter believes IE has increased its share from 52.77% to 53.46%. Interestingly enough, the number twisters at Microsoft quoted NetApplications’ estimates to highlight that IE has actually slowed Chrome’s growth.  According to data sets that are not public, the U.S. share of IE climbed by 0.76 points to 63.27% last month. Chrome fell 0.45 points and Firefox dropped 0.24 points, with shares of 4.53% and 20.38%, respectively. It is a nice example how you can use a certain portion of statistics to your advantage.

On a global basis, Microsoft is making some progress phasing out its old IE6. The browser gave up 0.6 points and ended the month at 18.07%, while IE7 dropped by 0.49 points. IE8 gained 0.99 points, which made it the fastest growing individual browser version, but IE8 was not able to compensate for the loss of IE6 and IE7, which resulted in an overall market share loss for IE, according to Net Applications. IE6, IE7 and IE8 account for 99.82% of IE’s total share, if we believe the Internet analysis firm.

It is interesting to note that IE8 in fact has been the fastest growing browser version for several months, which is, however, not surprising and based on the fact that IE has the largest user base and the transition to IE8 has been going on for more than a year now, while other browser developers usually transition more than 80% of their user base within two to four months (and post the strongest individual browser market share gains during those months as a result.)

Chrome and Opera up

Chrome has lost some traction in May, despite the hype that was created last month. Chrome gained just 0.32 points or 4.75% to 7.05%, a new record share for the browser. Its growth rate was the slowest since August 2009 in absolute numbers and its slowest growth since February 2009 in a percentage view. It is too early to judge whether Chrome’s growth has hit a speed bump as May was the first month of the beginning phases of the switchover from version 4 to version 5. Chrome growth has traditionally slowed during such a transition period in the past.

However, the slowdown was substantial as the browser’s growth was only half of what it was in the prior month. StatCounter also noticed a slowdown, albeit on a much higher level as the company lists Chrome with more than 8% market share.

May was the first month when Chrome 6 showed up. It is the sixth version of Chrome to be introduced to the market over a period of 12 months. Chrome 6 is only available as a developer version under the Chromium brand at this time, but captured a market share of 0.14% already, which is the same share as Chrome 3. We expect Google to almost entirely transition from Chrome 4 to Chrome 5 within the next 30 days.

If there was a winner in a relatively eventless May, it clearly was Opera. The browser gained 5.65% or 0.13 points to 2.43%, a record for the browser in our charts. StatCounter saw Opera’s share slightly decline to 1.87% in May. Opera’s future success, however may not be so much in the desktop space, but in mobile applications such as smartphones. According to StatCounter (NetApplications does not provide public market share estimates for mobile browsers), Opera Mini holds 26.36% of the mobile market, followed by the iPhone with 18.99%. Both browsers lost market share in May. Nokia is third and somewhat stable at about 15%, but Blackberry emerges as a strong contender with clear growth that has catapulted the browser to 14.19%. Apple’s iPod touch is fifth with 9.28%.

Safari: Still here?

Yes, it is. Safari is not moving much, though. It’s share is at 4.77%, up 0.05 points from April, according to Net Applications. There is not much happening at Apple these days.

Read on the next page: Can get Microsoft get rid of IE6? Why Mozilla decided to go with a Chrome interface in Firefox 4.

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