Chrome up big, IE and Firefox decline in 2011's browser marketshare battle
Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is still the world’s most popular browser, but it and Mozilla’s Firefox lost a lot of market share to Google’s Chrome in 2011, which is now firmly in second place.
According to StatCounter’s 2011 data, Internet Explorer currently has a 39% market share, Chrome is at 27%, while Firefox holds 25% of the market.
Safari and Opera follow with 6% and 2% market share, respectively.
These numbers alone don’t tell the whole story, however. Internet Explorer started 2011 with a 46% share of the market, and Firefox was over 30%. Both browsers steadily lost their share throughout the year, and almost all of it went to Chrome, which is clearly the year’s biggest gainer.
Net Applications’ numbers for 2011 are very different, with Internet Explorer having a much bigger lead (52%), but the trends are similar: Chrome was the only clear winner in 2011, having jumped from 10% to 19% market share.
Interestingly, Net Applications sees Firefox’ current market share almost exactly where it started 2011: at 22%.
Regardless of whose number you believe, it seems that Chrome is on a roll, and its steep upward trajectory shows that other browser makers should take notice. Otherwise, we may have a new king of the browser market in a year or two.
Microsoft's official Windows blog was happy to trumpet Net Applications' latest browser marketshare numbers, which show that Internet Explorer 9's share is up to over 25 percent on computers running Windows 7. That's some clever and unsurprising data selection, but looking across all desktop platforms over the course of the year shows a very different picture. When you look at the absolute numbers, IE is still the king (browser share of 52 percent from Net Applications and 39 percent from StatCounter), but its marketshare has declined all year long, despite the introduction of IE9. Chrome, on the other hand, experienced 84 percent growth year-over-year, far beyond any other browser on the market. It now sits at 27 percent according to StatCounter or 22 percent if you ask Net Applications.
Firefox also had a tough year, as its marketshare slowly but surely dipped — depending on who you ask, its lead over Chrome has evaporated. StatCounter shows Chrome solidly in 2nd place, ahead of Firefox's 25 percent share; Net Applications shows Firefox hanging on over Chrome at 22 percent. While we felt like StatCounter jumped the gun a little last month when it announced Chrome as the 2nd place browser, it appears the browser's momentum isn't slowing down any time soon.
Image source: Net Applications
