This year 2012 started off on a good note for Microsoft, in particular Internet Explorer 9. As it was being expected earlier, IE9 is on a roll, constantly increasing its worldwide user base on Windows 7. Presently, IE9 is used by 29% of Windows 7 users as in December 2011, compared to 7% in April 2011. An increase of 22% in eight months is quite an achievement for a browser which is dearly loved by some and mercilessly panned by others. Google Chrome browser share increased from 18% in April 2011 to 25% in December 2011 while Mozilla Firefox decreased from 24% to almost 20% within the same time period. A pictorial representation is given as below:
Speaking on region-specific terms, IE9 has strengthened its position in the US markets too with a gallop of 8% browser share in April 2011 to 35% in December 2011.
Though IE8 has seen a huge downfall in its user share, both worldwide and in US, Google Chrome is climbing up steadily from 12% to 16% in the US. And as expected, the present market trends aren’t that kind to Mozilla Firefox which has seen a decline from 19% to 17% in the US.
This may not be a huge difference number but if it continues with its Rapid Development Cycle, minting out a new version every six weeks, then the time is not far when its user base may be reduced to single digits. Maybe.
These statistics are of course only about the browser share on Windows 7 operating system but according to Microsoft, it has sold more than 450 million Windows 7 licenses and that is equivalent to 8 times the entire Mac user base. Maybe that explains the significance of Windows 7 and the percentage of browser share on it.
Microsoft is making moves to promote Windows 7 and IE9 while it gets ready with IE10 to be released along with Windows 8.
