December saw the second full month of IE11 availability with Windows 8.1, the release of Firefox 26, and the first full month of Chrome 31 availability. The latest market share numbers from Net Applications show Chrome was the only winner last month.
Between November and December, IE slipped 0.45 percentage points (from 58.36 percent to 57.91 percent), Firefox dipped 0.19 percentage points (from 18.54 percent to 18.35 percent), and Chrome gained 0.78 percentage points (from 15.44 percent to 16.22 percent). Safari meanwhile dipped 0.08 percentage points to 5.82 percent and Opera slid 0.06 percentage points to 1.33 percent.
At 57.91 percent, Internet Explorer ended 2013 on a high point, although November was its highest point for the year (58.36 percent). In January, the browser went back above the 55 percent mark, and throughout the year it edged closer and closer to the 60 percent mark.
The real story in December was IE11′s growth: it grabbed an additional 7.15 percentage points (moving from 3.27 percent to 10.42 percent). This was largely at the cost of IE10′s market share, which declined 6.45 percentage points to 11.05 percent, while IE9 slipped 0.29 percentage points to 8.96 percent.
IE8 dropped 1.10 percentage points, but it’s still the world’s most popular browser at 20.64 percent. IE11 can unfortunately mainly steal share from IE10 and IE9, since Windows XP users can’t upgrade past IE8.
IE7 somehow managed to gain 0.80 percentage points to 2.14 percent (we’re betting this is a blip) and IE6 slipped 0.49 percentage points to 4.43 percent. Three months ago, IE6 finally fell below the 5 percent mark, and thankfully it hasn’t regained its losses.
At 18.35 percent, Firefox seems to be hovering again. It has been at the 18 percent mark for the last six months.
Firefox 26 snapped up 6.60 percentage points, a number that would have been greater if it was available for a full month. All the other versions lost share: Firefox 25 slipped 2.95 percentage points, Firefox 24 fell 3.20 percentage points, and Firefox 22 slipped 0.05 points.
At 16.22 percent, Chrome has managed to recover some of its losses. Chrome 31 grabbed an additional 6.11 percentage points, now that it has been available for a full month. Chrome 30 lost 5.49 points, while Chrome 29, Chrome 28, and Chrome 27 barely budged.
Net Applications uses data captured from 160 million unique visitors each month by monitoring some 40,000 websites for its clients. StatCounter is another popular service for watching market share moves; the company looks at 15 billion page views. To us, it makes more sense to keep track of users than page views (for more, see this post).
Nevertheless, for December 2013, StatCounter listed Chrome as first with 43.92 percent market share, IE in second with 23.24 percent, Firefox in third with 18.95 percent, Safari with 9.14 percent, and Opera with 1.31 percent. The only part everyone agrees on is that Safari and Opera are not in the top three.
See also – Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 pass 10% market share, Windows XP falls below 30%
Top Image Credit: Hugo Humberto Plácido da Silva
