February saw the fourth full month of IE11 availability with Windows 8.1, the release Firefox 27 and Chrome 33. The latest numbers from Net Applications show IE10 has fallen below IE9, and that Chrome was the only winner last month.
Between January and February, IE slipped 0.02 percentage points (from 58.21 percent to 58.19 percent), Firefox fell 0.40 percentage points (from 18.08 percent to 17.68 percent), and Chrome gained 0.56 percentage points (from 16.28 percent to 16.84 percent). Safari meanwhile dipped 0.13 percentage points to 5.67 percent and Opera slid 0.05 percentage points to 1.23 percent.
At 58.19 percent, Internet Explorer is only slightly below its highest point of 2013 (in November it was at 58.36 percent). Last January, the browser went back above the 55 percent mark, and it looks like in 2014 it’s going to aim for the 60 percent mark.
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IE11 grabbed an additional 1.29 percentage points (moving 11.51 percent to 12.80 percent). Its predecessor declined 1.24 percentage points to 8.04 percent, falling below IE9, which slipped 0.12 percentage points to 8.80 percent. As Windows 8 users upgrade to Windows 8.1, we’ll likely continue to see IE10 lose share very rapidly.
IE8 unfortunately regained 0.48 percentage points, and it’s still the world’s most popular browser at 21.73 percent. IE11 continues to mainly steal market share from IE10 and IE9, since Windows XP users can’t upgrade past IE8.
IE7 fell 0.58 percentage points to 1.87 percent and IE6 managed to grow 0.11 percentage points to 4.65 percent. In September 2013, IE6 finally fell below the 5 percent mark, and thankfully it hasn’t regained all its losses.
At 17.68 percent, Firefox has slipping below the 18 percent mark, where it has hovered for the last seven months. In fact, the last time it was in the 17 percent range was all the way back in April 2008.
Firefox 27 only managed to grab 7.90 percent share, as it was released in the middle of the month. Firefox 26 fell 7.64 percentage points, and all the other versions lost share: Firefox 25, Firefox 24, and Firefox 23 lost a combined 0.18 points.
At 16.84 percent, Chrome continues to slowly recover its losses in 2013, and is getting close to finally passing Firefox. Chrome 33 only managed to grab 3.70 percentage points, which would have been higher if it was available for a full month. Chrome 32 grew to 3.07 percentage points to 9.86 percent, while all other versions were down: Chrome 31, Chrome 30, and Chrome 39 fell a combined 5.91 points.
Net Applications uses data captured from 160 million unique visitors each month by monitoring some 40,000 websites for its clients. StatCounter is another popular service for watching market share moves; the company looks at 15 billion page views. To us, it makes more sense to keep track of users than page views (for more, see this post).
Nevertheless, for February 2014, StatCounter listed Chrome as first with 43.89 percent market share, IE in second with 22.49 percent, Firefox in third with 19.21 percent, Safari with 9.74 percent, and Opera with 1.34 percent. The only part everyone agrees on is that Safari and Opera are not in the top three.
See also – Windows 8.1 now up to 4.30% market share as Windows 8 falls to 6.38%
Top Image Credit: Hugo Humberto Plácido da Silva
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