Google is serious about the browser market. It’s Chrome browser acquires more market share week by week. Both Microsoft and Mozilla are unable to stop their bleeding as IE has fallen below 39% share on individual days and Chrome is now just one point away from surpassing Firefox on weekends. If Google can maintain the momentum, Chrome will match Firefox market share by November.
Google had yet another successful month as Chrome gained 0.46 points in September (+6.24%) and increased its year-totals o far to 8.76 points. Chrome is now estimated by StatCounter to hold 23.61% of the browser market. The browser is especially strong in South America where it holds almost 35% of the market and may surpass IE (about 41%) early next year as the most popular browser in that region.
IE dropped by just 0.15 points in September and landed at 41.66%, a new low for IE on StatCounter’s charts. It was IE’s best performance in 15 months, but its 6-month chart still shows a significant drop of 3.45 market share points, which is down from a maximum of 6.68 points in January of this year. Mozilla’s Firefox is now officially the browser that loses market share faster than any other browser (on a percentage basis) as its 6-month performance dipped into double-digit territory: At 26.79% in September, the browser lost 0.78 points sequentially and 10.64% of market share over the past 6 months (3.19 points). Firefox may top Microsoft’s 6-month market share loss in absolute numbers in October.
Chrome is much more than a headache for Mozilla these days. We believe that Mozilla may have underestimated the threat posed by Chrome as Firefox market share dropped by 3.58 points just this year and by 4.48 points since Firefox 4 was announced, according to data provided by StatCounter. Mozilla has run out of time. Recent history shows that the trend of browser market share gains and losses can shift within a period of 4 – 6 months, if one vendor introduces a successful new trend and can convince users to adopt it. Those numbers suggest that Chrome will surpass Firefox market share within two months. Mozilla will have to come up with a groundbreaking idea to support Firefox in 2012 and beyond. We believe that only the Firefox OS platform will have enough thrust to keep Mozilla in the race.
As we enter 2012, Firefox will be the underdog in the browser battle and Microsoft and Google will position their armies to claim leadership in the browser market. Microsoft’s bets will be on Windows 8 and the much more important role of IE9/IE10 to run HTML5 apps inside Windows 8. Google has enough momentum already and may be able to gain more traction if its Chrome OS can attract more users.
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