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| Internet Explorer seriously shaken up by rival browsers in Europe |
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| Despite the release of its Version 8 in March of this year, Internet Explorer does not reverse the browser market trend in Europe, quite the contrary. The leading browser continues to give ground to its competitors and in some countries has been overtaken by Mozilla. |
| Cross section: |
- Study carried out from the 1st to the 30th September 2009
- Cross section of 14,442 websites
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| Google Chrome, Safari and Mozilla consolidate their positions in Europe, while Internet Explorer continues to experience a slow-down |
The graph below shows traffic distribution by browser; it is an estimation of the average distribution of visits which were recorded on websites in Europe in the months of March and September 2009. The traffic distribution for 23 different countries was estimated (for further information ont this please read the Methodology).
Internet Explorer continued to lose ground and has decreased by almost 3 points over the past 6 months:
- In September 2009, on average 62% of visits to a website in a European country were made through Internet Explorer compared to 64.6% in March 2009.
While Safari and Google Chrome found themselves in a good position:
- Safari retained its 3rd place with a gain of 1 point in a period of 6 months: its visit share rose from 3.3% in March 2009 to 4.3% in September 2009,
- Google Chrome took 4th place from Opera in the top browser rankings. Google Chrome’s visit share doubled over this 6-month period. In September 2009 an average of 2.8% of website traffic in Europe used Google Chrome.
Mozilla continued its upward trend:
- The average number of visits to a European website through Mozilla increased from 27.8% in March 2009 to 28.4% in September 2009.
And Opera’s share remained stable over the same period:
- Opera’s visit share remained stable between March and September 2009 at 2.2%
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| Mozilla overtakes Internet Explorer to become leader in Hungary and Slovakia |
We are particularly interested in the decline of Internet Explorer in Europe.
The graphs below provide more information on the 4 European countries where Internet Explorer continued to lose more ground between March and September 2009 (in points of visit share). The graphs show an estimation of the average distribution of the top 5 browsers in visit shares for websites in each of these 4 countries.
Out of the 23 countries that were studied, Internet Explorer experienced the largest decline in visit shares for websites in Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Austria.
In Hungary, Mozilla has overtaken Internet Explorer as the leading browser, with Internet Explorer’s visit share decreasing by 9.3 points between March and September 2009:
- In September 2009, on average 47.4% of visits in Hungary were made through Mozilla compared to 44.1% through Internet Explorer,
- Opera and Chrome occupy 3rd and 4th places respectively and increased over the 6-month period.
The same observation was also made in Slovakia, where Internet Explorer decreased by 6.9 points and lost its place as leader to Mozilla:
- In September 2009, on average 43.3% of visits in Slovakia were made through Mozilla compared to 41% through Internet Explorer,
- Opera and Chrome, 3rd and 4th most commonly used browsers respectively, experienced an upward trend over the 6-month period.
In Bulgaria, Internet Explorer’s visit share decreased by 6.2 points over the 6-month period. Its visit share was already below the European average in March 2009:
- In September 2009, on average 52.2% of visits in Bulgaria were made through Internet Explorer compared to 58.4% in March 2009,
- Mozilla, in second place, continued to soar (38.2% compared to 34.3% in March 2009) as well as Google Chrome (3.5% compared to 1.7%), which is the 4th most commonly used browser, behind Opera.
In Austria, Internet Explorer’s visit share decreased by 5.5 points between March and September 2009. Its share remains above the European average:
- In September 2009, on average 62.9% of visits in Austria were made through Internet Explorer compared to 68.4% in March 2009,
- The challenger Mozilla is still far behind but climbed by 4 points in terms of visit shares (29.4% in September compared to 25.4% in March 2009), followed by Safari (4.9% compared to 3.6%), Google Chrome (1.4%) and Opera (1.2%).
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Internet Explorer’s market share continued to slide in Europe, despite the release of its latest version IE8 in March 2009. In Hungary and Slovakia, Firefox has finally surpassed the popularity of Internet Explorer and became the leading browser in these two countries in September 2009.
Safari and Google Chrome continued to rise although their shares remain very small. Safari’s visit share gained 1 point over the past 6 months on average for websites in Europe. Google Chrome recently celebrated its first birthday and saw its visit share double over the same period and took 4th place from Opera on the list of European top browsers.
Stay tuned as AT Internet Institute will provide a new browser barometer soon.
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Methodology:
We are interested in the average distribution of visits, by browser, which have been recorded by a certain cross-section of websites (except mobile websites).
In order to establish the cross-section of websites to be used as part of a study, a website is only used if the selection criteria, which have been established previously, are respected. These criteria are very strict and their aim is to remove any websites which have an anecdotal audience, or a chaotic audience, or whose collected data suspects a dysfunction in the measure.
For each country, only websites whose traffic has been mainly generated within the country itself are considered. In addition to this, only visits to these websites which have been generated within the country itself are considered. We calculate average traffic distribution per website. For every website, the visit share for each browser corresponds to the total number of visits of the analyzed browser compared to the overall number of visits for all browsers combined over a given period.
The European indicator is representative of the countries audited. The average visit share in Europe corresponds to the average of the indicators for the 23 countries studied. To evaluate the average, all countries are regarded as being equal in the value of their parameters.
The 23 countries included in the study were:
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
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