Mozilla Firefox 4, which launched yesterday, has already taken almost 2pc of the worldwide internet browser market and scored higher globally than Microsoft’s new Internet Explorer 9, which launched a week ago, according to new figures in from StatCounter.
“Firefox 4 has really hit the ground running and has eclipsed the launch of IE 9,” said Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter.
“Although IE 9 has undoubtedly been hampered by its lack of compatibility with Windows XP.” By yesterday, IE 9 had taken just 0.87pc of the worldwide market.
When all versions of each browser are taken into account, Internet Explorer still leads the global market with 45pc, followed by Firefox with 30pc and Chrome with 17pc. In the US, IE (all versions combined) leads the market with 48pc followed by Firefox on 26pc and Chrome on 14pc.
A steady decline in Internet Explorer’s marketshare
On a monthly basis, StatCounter figures show a steady decline in the IE global market share from 55pc in February last year to 45pc this year. In the same time frame, Google’s Chrome has risen steadily from 7pc worldwide to 17pc.
StatCounter recently reported that Firefox overtook Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) to become the No 1 browser in Europe for the first time in December 2010.
StatCounter Global Stats are based on aggregate data collected on a sample exceeding 15bn page views per month (4bn from the US) from the StatCounter network of more than 3m websites.
