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| Mozilla Firefox gains market share in Europe |
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| In our previous study which was dated November 2008, Google Chrome, 3 months after its launch, remained very quiet… Is this still the case? Do the other browsers make progress? AT Internet Institute provides you the browser barometer for January 2009. |
| Cross section: |
- Study carried out from the 1st to the 31st January 2009
- Cross-section of 122,099 websites
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| At the beginning of 2009, Google Chrome remains in 5th position with 1.5% of European visits |
The graph below shows the average visit share of the various browsers in Europe for January 2009. 5 months after its launch, Google Chrome is ranked 5th with 1.5% of European visits and follows Safari (3%), Opera (4.1%), Mozilla Firefox (32.5%) and Internet Explorer (58.1%).
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| Internet Explorer lost ground while Mozilla gained market share |
The table below compares the average visit share of the various browsers in Europe from August 2008 to January 2009.
Over this 6-month period, Internet Explorer dropped by 1.3 point to reach 58% for January 2009:
- Its average visit share as a European country moved from 59.4% in August 2008 to 58.1% in January 2009,
- an 8-point drop in one year (a 66.1% visit share in January 2008)...
After 3 months of stabilization, Mozilla Firefox registers a 32.5% total share and is climbing steadily for 2 months:
- After a 2-point lost from August to September 2008, the challenger remained stable with 31.1% until November,
- its share rose in December 2008 and January 2009 but remained below 33% (August 2008 market share).
Opera has been dropping since November 2008, contrary to Safari:
- Opera reached its lowest visit share for 6 months in January 2009: 4.1% of European visits on average,
- Safari has started to jump in 2009 with a 3% share. The release of Safari beta 4 on February further consolidates this trend line…
Google Chrome has started to rise although its share remains very small:
- Google Chrome increases 0.5% in four months
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| Out of 10 Mozilla visits, 9 are attributed to Firefox 3 |
The graph below shows the average visit share in Europe for Firefox 3 within the Mozilla family and IE7 within the Internet Explorer family. We can observe their performance within the visits coming from the two main browsers.
Internet Explorer lags behind Mozilla Firefox:
- 7 months after its launch (June 19th 2008), Firefox 3 reaches 88% of Mozilla Firefox visits (vs. 76% in November 2008). Mozilla Firefox stopped the development of Firefox 2 since December 2008. The release of Firefox 3.1, slightly delayed for more testing of the Trace Monkey engine, could announce the end of lifespan for Firefox 2.
- 2 years after its release (October 19th 2006), out of 10 Internet Explorer visits, 6.6 are attributed to IE7. Will the Norwegian campaign against IE6 convince anyone? Many people are still using this browser because they don’t know any other version (IE7, beta IE8), any other browser or because that’s what they use at work. The use of IE6 disturbs webmasters because they must plan exception for a version released since 2001…
The browser ranking remains relatively stable in the beginning of 2009 but the market continues to evolve…
Internet Explorer loses ground but remains the dominant browser. Its challenger Mozilla Firefox gains ground after taking a break for 3 months. Safari continues to rise, and Google Chrome shows a little growth.
The European Commission ruling could force Microsoft to offer alternative web browsers within Windows. It will set up a new deal… Indeed, the commission accused “Microsoft of abusing its market position by bundling its Internet Explorer software in the Windows operating package, harming competition between Web browsers, undermining innovation and ultimately reducing consumer choice”. To be continued…
Stay tuned as AT Internet Institute (ex-XiTi Monitor) will provide a new browser barometer.
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Methodology:
The visits share for each browser is the total number of visits of the browser in question compared to the overall number of visits for all browsers combined over a given period.
In the last part of the study, the Firefox 3 visits share is the number of visits by this browser compared to the overall visits by the Mozilla family. In the same way, the IE7 visits share is the number of visits by this browser compared to the overall visits by the Internet Explorer family.
In this study the Europe indicator is representative of the countries audited. The average visits share in Europe is the average of the indicators for the 32 countries studied. Therefore the behaviour of a European country generating few visits is equitably taken into account in the visits recorded for the continent to which it belongs.
The 32 countries included in the study were:
Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta, Monaco, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the Ukraine and the United Kingdom.
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