Web browser market share - An update

It’s always interesting to keep an eye on the market shares of the various web browsers. While their support for standards is much improved, it is still important to know what browser visitors to your site or application will be using (just ask anyone who has tried to plug the holes in IE8/9’s support for HTML5).

Back in the old days, the market was evenly split between Internet Explorer and Firefox. Then in 2008 along came Google’s Chrome, which was the first real competitor to take and maintain a share of the market. Recently Chrome and Firefox have moved to much shorter release cycles, meaning market share is now carved up further into multiple versions of the same browser. Internet Explorer is also starting to follow this trend.

Net Applications have just released their data for November, and there are some interesting things to note. Internet Explorer is still the dominant browser in the marketplace, with an overall share of 54%. IE8 takes over 24% of this, with IE9 close behind on 20%. IE6 is still hanging on in there with just over 6%. It’s interesting to note IE10 showing up in the numbers, albeit with a miniscule 0.51%. As Windows 8 sales continue, and IE 10 for Windows 7 creeps towards its final release this number should jump considerably.

Elsewhere Firefox gained some ground on the previous month’s numbers, and Chrome lost 1.31% of the market. Chrome has hovered around the 20% mark for most of the year, but is now looking at ending 2012 in a slightly worse position than it started in.

A quick look at the mobile space shows that Safari is still king, with 60.31% of the overall market. That is a 5% increase on its position in January 2012. Android is growing in popularity though, with 26% of the market. That is steady compared to last month, but a healthy 5% increase on September. Maybe Apple won’t have it all its own way in 2013?