Analysis – Google’s Chrome had another successful month and ended 2010 with 10.70% market share, according to Net Applications and almost 16% according to StatCounter. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer continued to lose market share on a fast pace while Mozilla’s Firefox is fighting and tightly holding on to the market share it has.
There is not much Microsoft or Mozilla can do about Chrome’s market advance at this time. Net Application’s latest market share data estimate Chrome’s market share now at 10.7%, up 0.72 points or 7.2% from November. The only browser that can somewhat match Chrome’s growth at this time is Apple’s Safari, which grew 7.0% or 0.41 points to 6.3% market share. December was Safari’s 11th consecutive month of growth.
Microsoft’s IE lost more than 1 point and landed at 56.0%, down 1.9% from November and a new 12-year record low for the browser.
Internet Explorer
There are early signs that IE9, despite it is still in Beta, will not be the browser that will save Microsoft’s browser market. Microsoft has introduced the browser with a big push and is running ads for it across the Internet, but the adoption is very weak, despite a claimed 23 million downloads and 1.82% market share on Windows 7. The market share gain on Windows 7 is a huge problem for Microsoft, as it is the only hope for Microsoft for IE9 to gain market share, while XP is not supported and Vista is abandoned by the company. Overall share of IE9 is 0.50%, which matches the current beta market share of Firefox 4, which is driven without marketing dollars outside of Mozilla’s website and matches about Google’s combined share of Beta and Developer Chrome browser – both of which are not marketed at all. IE9 market share gain is, in the grand scheme, insignificant.
IE8 is still gaining market share at a rate of slightly more than 1 point per month and now stands at 34.77%, up from 33.59% in November. However, it cannot entirely pick up the loss of IE6 (-1.78 points) and IE7 (-0.52 points). IE6 is now at 12.03% and if we believe Net Applications’ data set, then it is expecially the main tree of IE6 that is declining, and not specialized version of the browser that were distributed in emerging markets and Asia (such as the Maxthon Edition, which is at 0.16%, the The World Edition with 0.24%). It appears as if corporate America is upgrading browsers and Microsoft’s worst nightmare could become a reality: Former corporate IE6 users are switching to other browsers.
Internet Explorer is at a new 12-year record low, according to our records.
StatCounter estimates IE’s market share at 46.0%. Clicky throws in another number that varies from 42 to 48%, depending on the week/weekend day.
Firefox
There is good news and bad news for Mozilla. Firefox still hovers somewhere between 22 and 23% of market share. Given the fact that it still has a relatively antiquated browser with Firefox 3.6 – which simply can’t match Chrome, Safari or IE9 (Beta) anymore, this is an impressive result and hints to an incredibly loyal user base. However, the Firefox 4 Beta isn’t gaining as much traction as we would have liked to see after more than 6 months of availability. The version transition chart also highlights a problem. Neither version 3.5 nor 3.6 have been able to match the market share high of Firefox 3.0. Version 3.0 topped out at 21.17%, 3.5 reached 17.08% and 3.6 currently stands at 18.55% (with slight to flat growth.) The transitions need to work much more smoothly in the future for Mozilla, if it wants to survive the fight between Google and Microsoft. There needs to be more incentive for Firefox users to upgrade and provide the perception of a fresh browser.
According to StatCounter, Firefox stands at 30.68% market share. Clicky estimates the share at about 28-29%.
Chrome
Chrome is now officially above the 10% hurdle, with an indicated 10.7% by Net Applications. StatCounter is even more optimistic and sees Chrome at 15.86% globally and 13.15 just in North America. You’d be immediately hired by Microsoft if you could pinpoint the exact reason of Chrome’s fast growth, but we tend to think that it is the accelerated upgrade path of the browser. The version transition chart shows an amazingly well-oiled machine that is able to attract more users from version to version, within a very short period of time. Users may have complained about a forced upgrade mechanism, but we are beginning to think that we are simply lazy and like the browser do the work for us. Google may have found the recipe to grow its browser in a territory IE cannot follow, as Microsoft is still stuck with significant market share for IE6, IE7 and IE8 – and browsers that do not upgrade automatically. Consider the fact that IE9 only works on Windows 7 and Vista, it is a very likely that Microsoft royally screwed itself and will have to surrender the market lead within two to three years.
Clicky estimates Chrome’s market share at about 15 to 17%. Google recently said that about 120 million people are currently using Chrome.
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