Chrome Wins Silver in Worldwide Browser Share

Google's Chrome browser is now the second most popular Web browser in the world, according to figures from various metrics firms. Microsoft's Internet Explorer is still in the lead, but Google's strong marketing push has been credited as one reason its relatively young browser has topped Mozilla Firefox in global market share.

It appears that Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) relatively new Chrome browser has displaced Mozilla Firefox from the No. 2 spot in the worldwide browser market, following leader Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Internet Explorer.

"Three years ago, we built Chrome to help spur more innovation on the Web, and we're excited that over 200 million people around the world are using it," Google spokesperson Lily Lin told the E-Commerce Times.
The news indicates Google's marketing efforts are paying off.

Flattening Out Firefox

Google's gains come at the expense of Firefox rather than Internet Explorer (IE), which "is trying to head off a long, slow decline," David Smith, an analyst at Gartner (NYSE: IT), told the E-Commerce Times.
Google Chrome is a newer browser, which attracts users, said Mike Kaply, the founder of Kaply Consulting, said.
Chrome also "took advantage of some issues Firefox was having around memory use and crashiness," although there have been improvements in these areas of late, Kaply stated.

Tallying the Scores

Figures from Realtime Stats show that IE has almost 52 percent of the market, Chrome has just over 20 percent, and Firefox has more than 18 percent. The rest is split up among minor browsers.
Statcounter, which is based in Ireland, has a slightly different set of figures, although they also point to Chrome having displaced Firefox.
Figures from the firm's research arm, StatCounter Global Stats, indicate that IE has nearly 41 percent of the market, Chrome nearly 26 percent, and Firefox just over 25 percent.
Most arrestingly, Statcounter's figures show that Chrome more than quintupled its market share year over year, from nearly 5 percent in November 2010 to the approximately 26 percent last month.
Statcounter measures actual browser usage, not downloads. Its results are based on the more than 15 billion hits per month worldwide on more than 3 million sites that have installed its tracking code.

"Chrome has been out-marketing Firefox for some time now, because Google has more money than the Mozilla Foundation," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.
"Google also cherry-picked some of the top Firefox talent, and this likely had an adverse impact on Mozilla's ability to execute in a timely fashion," Enderle told the E-Commerce Times.