April saw the sixth full month of IE11 availability with Windows 8.1, as well as the release of Chrome 34 and Firefox 28. The latest numbers from Net Applications show that Chrome was once again the only major winner last month, cementing its second place position over Firefox.
Between March and April, IE dipped 0.08 percentage points (from 57.96 percent to 57.88 percent), Chrome gained 0.40 percentage points (from 17.52 percent to 17.92 percent), and Firefox fell 0.26 percentage points (from 17.26 percent to 17.00 percent). Safari meanwhile slipped 0.02 percentage points to 5.66 percent and Opera slipped 0.06 percentage points to 1.14 percent.
At 57.88 percent, Internet Explorer is still 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 we’ll be watching to see if in 2014 it manages to get above the 60 percent mark.
IE11 grabbed an additional 0.90 percentage points (from 15.71 percent to 16.61 percent). IE10 declined 0.27 percentage points to 6.85 percent while IE9 gained 0.13 percentage points to 8.89 percent. Nevertheless, this was enough for IE11 to pass IE10 and IE9 combined.
IE8 fell 0.29 percentage points, but it’s still the world’s most popular browser at 20.85 percent. IE11 continues to mainly steal market share from IE10 and IE9, since Windows XP users can’t upgrade past IE8, but now that support has ended for the ancient OS, maybe that trend will finally change. IE7 fell 0.09 percentage points to 0.71 percent and IE6 fell 0.42 percentage points to 3.73 percent.
At 17.92 percent, Chrome has hit a new high. Not only did it finally pass Firefox in March, but it has managed to keep this position.
Chrome 34 grabbed a starting 8.64 percent, a number which would have been higher if the browser version was available for a full month. All other versions were down: Chrome 33, Chrome 32, Chrome 31, and Chrome 30 fell a combined 8.17 points.
At 17.00 percent, Firefox is lower than it has been for more than 60 months. This may change with the release of Firefox 29, a major revamp of the browser.
That new version was released at the end of the month, which is why it only grabbed 0.70 market share. Firefox 28 meanwhile gained an additional 9.45 percentage points to 12.28 percent. All the other versions lost share: Firefox 27, Firefox 26, and Firefox 25 fell a combined 10.00 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 April 2014, StatCounter listed Chrome as first with 45.22 percent, IE in second with 21.43 percent, Firefox in third with 18.62 percent, Safari with 9.79 percent, and Opera with 1.39 percent. The only part everyone agrees on is that Safari and Opera are not in the top three.
See also – Windows 8.1 finally passes 5% market share, while unsupported Windows XP is still over 26%
Top Image Credit: Hugo Humberto Plácido da Silva
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