Can anyone do anything to halt Chrome’s meteoric market share rise? Not even the mighty Apple poses a challenge. Perhaps another vendor has made an impact in November’s StatCounter statistics? …
Worldwide Desktop & Tablet Browser Statistics, September to October 2015
The following table shows browser usage movements during the past month.
| Browser | September | October | change | relative |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IE (all) | 15.71% | 15.28% | -0.43% | -2.70% |
| IE11 | 9.88% | 10.00% | +0.12% | +1.20% |
| IE10 | 1.63% | 1.53% | -0.10% | -6.10% |
| IE9 | 1.75% | 1.61% | -0.14% | -8.00% |
| IE6/7/8 | 2.45% | 2.14% | -0.31% | -12.70% |
| Edge | 0.96% | 1.10% | +0.14% | +14.60% |
| Chrome | 53.24% | 53.78% | +0.54% | +1.00% |
| Firefox | 15.87% | 15.52% | -0.35% | -2.20% |
| Safari | 3.89% | 4.10% | +0.21% | +5.40% |
| iPad Safari | 5.25% | 5.02% | -0.23% | -4.40% |
| Opera | 1.76% | 1.78% | +0.02% | +1.10% |
| Others | 3.32% | 3.42% | +0.10% | +3.00% |
Worldwide Desktop & Tablet Browser Statistics, October 2014 to October 2015
The following table shows browser usage movements during the past twelve months:
| Browser | October 2014 | October 2015 | change | relative |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IE (all) | 19.29% | 15.28% | -4.01% | -20.80% |
| IE11 | 9.52% | 10.00% | +0.48% | +5.00% |
| IE10 | 2.62% | 1.53% | -1.09% | -41.60% |
| IE9 | 2.76% | 1.61% | -1.15% | -41.70% |
| IE6/7/8 | 4.39% | 2.14% | -2.25% | -51.30% |
| Chrome | 47.71% | 53.78% | +6.07% | +12.70% |
| Firefox | 17.04% | 15.52% | -1.52% | -8.90% |
| Safari | 10.99% | 9.12% | -1.87% | -17.00% |
| Opera | 1.29% | 1.78% | +0.49% | +38.00% |
| Others | 3.68% | 4.52% | +0.84% | +22.80% |
(The tables show market share estimates for desktop browsers. The ‘change’ column is the absolute increase or decrease in market share. The ‘relative’ column indicates the proportional change, i.e. 8% of IE9 users switched browsers last month. There are several caveats so I recommend you read How Browser Market Share is Calculated and StatCounter vs NetMarketShare.)
It’s boring to say this again, but Chrome had another good month with a 0.54% market share increase. No other browser could touch it. I’ve complained about Chrome’s faults in the past but one thing Google gets right is vendor lock-in:
- Your Chrome configuration follows you between devices and OS versions. You can install Chrome anywhere, log in and everything is as you left it. That’s a big bonus for power users and developers — we spend an inordinate amount of time tweaking software.
- Your Chrome bookmarks, extensions and apps are available everywhere. I would happily install Chrome just to use Postman and Carat to be instantly productive on an unfamiliar PC.
- If you’re using GMail, Drive or any other Google applications, Chrome will always offer the best experience and you’ll be logged in automatically.
Other browsers offer synchronization facilities but they’re not as sophisticated or essential. Switching away from Chrome is considerably more difficult — but that’s not a criticism. It’s likely the Google/Chrome lock-in evolved as accounts, features and apps became increasingly entwined. Few vendors can compete with that success.
Proportionally, Microsoft Edge had the largest jump but it was starting from a relatively low point. Edge is a great browser and IE11 is generally well behaved but the older IE6 to IE10 versions still account for one in twenty users on average. You should analyze your own market and statistics but, in general, I rarely bother to test IE10 and below — you don’t necessarily need to when you adopt progressive enhancement.
Worldwide Mobile Browser Statistics, September to October 2015
Mobile usage increased a little during October to reach 41.12% of all web activity. The 50:50 mobile to desktop ratio remains on course.
The top mobile browsing applications:
| Mobile Browser | September | October | change | relative |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chrome | 34.38% | 35.85% | +1.47% | +4.30% |
| UC Browser | 16.82% | 17.42% | +0.60% | +3.60% |
| iPhone | 16.78% | 16.38% | -0.40% | -2.40% |
| Android | 13.59% | 13.06% | -0.53% | -3.90% |
| Opera Mini/Mobile | 13.32% | 12.54% | -0.78% | -5.90% |
| IEMobile | 1.99% | 2.07% | +0.08% | +4.00% |
| Others | 3.12% | 2.68% | -0.44% | -14.10% |
Only Chrome and UC Browser enjoyed significant growth during the month with most other browsers slipping. That’s understandable for older applications such as Android and Opera. However, the iPhone version of Safari has not increased for almost twelve months despite new hardware and ever-increasing Apple profits. The drop could be misleading: it’s possible the mobile market is growing faster than iPhone sales. Whatever the reason, competition is healthy and it’s no longer necessary to pay premium prices for great devices.
Craig BucklerCraig is a freelance UK web consultant who built his first page for IE2.0 in 1995. Since that time he's been advocating standards, accessibility, and best-practice HTML5 techniques. He's created enterprise specifications, websites and online applications for companies and organisations including the UK Parliament, the European Parliament, the Department of Energy & Climate Change, Microsoft, and more. He's written more than 1,000 articles for SitePoint and you can find him @craigbuckler.
