Since the release of Firefox 4 and IE9 the two browsers have seen nothing but growth and no indications of it stopping either. The two browsers have only been available for more than a month, let’s take a look at the stat counter statistics of the steady growth of the browsers.
The table shows the different browsers from March to April and their market share estimates. The change column indicates the increase or decrease in the market share from the two months. The relative column shows the proportional change, for example the IE7 had 20% abandoned the browser last month.
Firefox 4 and IE9 had both excellent figures with Firefox having 7.59% and IE9 2.32% of the market. Both browsers have seen more than a 200% increase in one month, which shows the browsers gaining popularity among users. With saying that the browsers did just recently come out and it is easier to double your market when you start with nothing.
The table shows that with the introduction of Firefox 4 the versions before had dropped at the same rate that the new version grew. With the pace Firefox is going at the older edition will become extinct within 6 months. Firefox has a quick update system and if it keeps going at this rate different versions may become extinct sooner.
IE is more complex with their usage patterns. IE6/7 market share has significantly dropped, which is good because the browsers are outdated, but they still hold a decent portion of IE market share. IE8 has no significant change but still holds the largest chunk for IE market share. IE9 is gaining but has a long way to go to catch up to.
The bad news for Firefox and IE is that Chrome continues to gain more market share. Chrome browser has consistently being gaining 1% of the market share every month with one third of those users migrating from Firefox and two thirds from IE. There’s no sign of Chrome growth letting up and their users have been faithful to their browser. The market share race is getting close between the three browsers with all of them showing growth.