Today’s release of browser market share numbers, as far as they have been made available by Net Applications and StatCounter, and Microsoft’s spin on those numbers got us scratching our heads. Microsoft is trying hard to attach a smile to a browser that is sinking in popularity by selecting data sets that do not matter in the big picture. Or, Microsoft is simply oblivious to the severity and reasons of IE’s market share decline: Microsoft continues to make the same mistakes with IE8/IE9 that got it into trouble in the first pace with IE6.
You know that something isn’t quite right when a company is highlighting the strong decline of one product and the insignificant increase of market share of another. We understand the marketing approach behind Microsoft’s IE blog posts, but the team that is responsible for promoting IE needs to get a grip on what is happening and communicate in a much more transparent way what is happening with IE – whether that is positive or not. We do believe that Microsoft’s selective number publishing is – while accurate (with the exception of IE6′s data) – a dangerous and careless stroll on thin ice. Number twisting will get you only so far.
The November Numbers
IE market share suffered its heaviest loss in 12 months and dropped 1.55% to 58.26%, according to Net Applications. The absolute sequential drop was 0.92 points from 59.18% in October. Since January 2009, IE has surrendered more than 11 points of market share, which translates into more than 100 million users, Net Applications data indicates. In comparison, Microsoft said that IE9 has been downloaded 15 million times now.
Firefox also continued its slight decline and is now at 22.75%, its lowest level since April 2009. Over the past 12 months, Firefox showed declines of market share in 8 months (IE: 10). Once again, the big winner is Chrome, which is now at 9.25% share, up from 8.5% in October. After a slowdown in mid-2010, Chrome is back at substantial growth rates that outpace ever other browser currently available, in absolute numbers as well as percentage gains. Since the beginning of this year, Chrome’s share has nearly doubled from 5.22% and if Google can keep its average growth rate, the browser will end 2011 with 15% market share. There is no denying that Chrome gets stronger every month and both Microsoft and Mozilla should be concerned about Google.
Safari gained 0.1 points to 5.55%, while Opera dropped 0.1 points to 2.20%. Both browser remain relatively stable and do not impact the overall browser war significantly.
The Numbers In Detail
IE
IE6 saw a sharp drop in market share to 13.66% (down 1.26 points), which may be due to the fact that Microsoft stopped selling Windows XP across the globe in October. IE7 also dropped 0.39 points to 9.5%, while IE8 gained 0.7 points to 32.75 points. IE9′s growth has slowed dramatically as the browser gained just 0.06 points to 0.38%, despite a heavy advertising campaign in which Microsoft has plastered websites with IE9 Beta ads.
It is important to note that these data do not include fragmented IE7/IE8/IE9 market shares – and those numbers of minor browser versions that are distributed in certain parts of the world and whose numbers are not provided by Net Applications. The version market share numbers published by Net Applications account for only 95.98% of IE usage, which means that there is 4% of version usage we have absolutely no idea of.
While Microsoft may see fragmented versions as an opportunity to provide customized browser versions in an effort to boost market share, this strategy may be damaging in the long term and screw the browser. In creates an upgrade mess that is almost impossible to control. Google’s success is largely based on the fact that it provides fresh browsers to its uses effortlessly. Microsoft has artificially capped market share of IE9 by limiting the browser’s availability to Windows Vista and 7 and making the upgrade process a rather painful procedure. In our case, two of our five test systems (one vanilla Gateway i5/Windows 7 notebook as well as a somewhat dated Gateway Core 2 Quad Q6600/Windows Vista PC still refuse to accept IE9. We doubt that Microsoft can have an effective and reliable migration strategy for IE7/IE8 users to IE9 at this time.
Firefox
Firefox has clearly lost its fire in user popularity. A result of 22.75% is not exactly what Mozilla needs right now as it seems that there is still a very loyal user base, but there is willingness to switch. Firefox 3.6 is an outdated browser that will be replaced in early 2011 and Mozilla will need all of its talent to just stop the continued market share bleeding. Right now, it has still twice the market share of Chrome, but if the 2010 trend continues in 2011, it will drop into the 20% range by the end of next year and it will be within reach of Google and surpassed by Chrome in 2012.
Firefox 3.6 is the dominating browser with 18.16% of share, which is still growing from month to month. 3.5 has declined to 2.38%. What is somewhat concerning is Firefox 4 Beta’s share of just 0.28%. Both IE and Chrome are doing much better in this space and it will be critical for Mozilla to attract more interest in its beta browsers to enable a smooth transition. The impact of the rather slow adoption of the beta versions will be seen once the final version of Firefox 4 is revealed.
On a deeper level it is interesting to see that Firefox 3/3.5 lost a combined 0.6 points of share in November, while 3.6/4 gained just 0.55%. It’s not significant, but there is a fluctuation of users Mozilla will need to address. A successful and powerful introduction of Firefox 4 will be more important for Mozilla than any other browser before.
Chrome
Chrome is the popular kid on the block right now and the rise of this browser is very comparable to the early days of Firefox in 2004. It is an extremely competitive market and Chrome’s success is astonishing, even if we have to admit that Google can advertise Chrome on the most attractive website globally – google.com. November once again showed the effectiveness of Google’s upgrade procedure, which is, conceivably, the most effective weapon in its arsenal to build user loyalty. When was the last time you actively upgraded your Chrome browser?
Chrome 7, which was released as final in late October, increased its market share from 2.36% to 8.00% in October. Google effectively transitioned about 90% of its user base to the most current browser, while nearly 3% of its user are now permanent users of developer/nightly versions of its browser.
Mozilla recently attacked forced upgrades and the decision of some browser makers to push plug-ins without asking, but there is no question that Google has found an effective way to drive Chrome into the market. Both Microsoft and Mozilla missed this trend and need to catch up.
The question surrounding chrome is clearly if it can keep the pace of growth. The browser stalled once so far (the share declined slightly in July 2010), but its growth rates from month to month have been accelerating since that time and reached 8.82% in November.
Read on the next page: Geographies: Europe hurts IE
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