Has Mozilla gambled Firefox’ future away? Browser market share data released today indicate that Firefox may have suffered a big blow against its market share, while Chrome and especially IE8 were able to gain. Both Net Applications and StatCounter now state that Chrome has reached a milestone and now has more than 50% of the market share of Firefox.
2011 has begun decidedly different for some browser makers than it ended, even if Net Applications and StatCounter, the two major authorities in measuring browser market share, do not entirely agree on the outcome. According to NetApplications, IE gained, Chrome gained, Safari gained and Firefox lost. According to StatCounter, Chrome gained, IE lost, Firefox lost and Safari lost. However, both analysis firms now indicate that Chrome owns more than half of the market share of Firefox and there are no signs that this trend will slow down as Firefox continues to lose share and Chrome is growing at a fast pace.
The Data
Net Applications (NA)
According to NA, IE gained 0.77 points and now is estimated to hold 56.77% of the market. The January gain was the strongest one-month gain for the browser in 24 months. The gain is mainly due to a stable IE6 share (down 0.01 points to 12.02%), just a slight drop in IE7 share (down to 8.35%) and a strong gain in IE8 share (up 0.91 points to 35.68%.) IE8′s gains were across the board and affected the main browser trunk as well as special versions that have been around the world (such as IE8 The World Edition.) IE9 (Beta, RC) remains insignificant at 0.59% share.
Firefox suffered a 1.01 point drop to 21.74%, which is the lowest share we have on record (since January 2009.) The drop was caused by a significant decline in Firefox 3.6 share, which decreased from 18.55% to 17.82%. At the same time the Beta of Firefox climbed by only 0.13 points to 0.63% share. It is rather unusual for a current version of Firefox to reveal such a dramatic drop. The conclusion may be, if NA’s data is correct, that Firefox 3.6 is simply getting too old and that the continued delays of Firefox 4 have prompted users to shift their attention to other browsers. However, a shift to IE8, as the data indicates, is generally questionable, due to the high loyalty rate of the Firefox user base. The available data is somewhat inconclusive at this point.
Chrome posted further gains and is now up to 10.93% market share, which is more than half of Firefox’ share. If there has been any doubt about Chrome’s threat to Firefox, this is a milestone that should have both Mozilla and Microsoft worried.
Safari maintained its steady pace and grows with Mac OS and iOS. The browser is now at 6.36%, up 0.06 points from last month. Opera was slightly down to 2.15%.
StatCounter (SC)
StatCounter paints a slightly different picture. The firm estimates IE to be down 0.56 points to 45.44% share for January, while Firefox dropped 0.31 points to 30.37%, which is a 17 month-low in SC’s charts. Chrome was up 0.86 points to 16.54%, which is also past the midway point as far as Firefox share is concerned. Safari and Opera were stable at 5.08% and 2.00%, respectively.
It is a rare occasion that NA and SC do not agree on the market share trend of web browsers. We are taking the development of IE and Firefox share with a grain of salt this month, while we note that both agree on a decline of Firefox and a gain of Chrome. Mozilla is now waging a war on two fronts: Not too long ago, it was challenging IE; now, Firefox has to defend itself against IE as well as Chrome, as Firefox is caught in a trap between its two rivals: Both Microsoft and Google are aiming for either maintaining or assuming the market lead and Mozilla appears to be somewhat in the way. If Google wants the lead from Microsoft, there is no doubt that it will sacrifice its relationship with Mozilla, if it has to – at least as far as the browser market opportunity is concerned.
IE9 and Firefox 4 behind Expectations
IE’s gains cannot hide that IE9 is way behind usage expectations, despite the fact that Microsoft says that IE9 downloads have grown to 36 million (however, given the market share there is reason to believe that only 5-8 million are actually in use.) Given the massive marketing behind IE9, 0.59% market share for the Beta and RC cannot be enough, even if these are pre-releases. However, Microsoft has been able to keep IE8 growing to alleviate the losses of IE6 and IE7 against Chrome. It is worse for Mozilla. If NA is right, then Firefox 3.6 has begun to retract substantially (SC indicates just slight losses for 3.6), while Firefox 4 has just gained 0.13 points. Even if we assume that NA is wrong and SC’s market share estimates are entirely accurate, then there is a good sign that Firefox 4 will have to repair damage that has been done by the delay of the browser, before it can be put into a mode where it would take on IE9.
The Bottom Line
Chrome remains the popular kid on the block. Mozilla looks increasingly vulnerable and the longer the company delays the release of Firefox 4, the weaker its position will get against IE9 and Chrome. There is a good chance that the continued delays of the new browser have done damage that will be difficult to repair as market data indicates that Chrome can grow even when IE posts gains. It’s Firefox that sits in a trap and it needs to find a way to free itself. Otherwise, Firefox may be eaten up by its rivals before 2011 comes to an end.
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