04 May 2010 | Author: D. Warburton Search Copywriter

Internet Explorer falls below 60 per cent of browser market

Microsoft's previously dominant Internet Explorer browser has dropped below 60 per cent of the market for the first time, according to the latest figures from Net Applications. This is despite the company's claim that more than 100 million licenses have been sold for its new Windows 7 operating system.

Thanks to increasing awareness and availability of alternative browsers and operating systems, Microsoft's web browser has had a long and gradual fall in international usage, dropping from its peak of 95 per cent market share in 2003 to below 70 per cent in January 2009 and now crossing the 60 per cent threshold. So while IE's fall from grace may be nothing new, it's the accelerating speed of decline that has analysts interested.

It was revealed in December that Internet Explorer's market share fell by around one per cent each month in the second half of last year, ending at 62.69 per cent of the browser market. Its more rapid descent may be due to the increasing popularity of Google's Chrome browser, which rose from 6.13 per cent in March to a new high of 6.73 per cent of the international market, as well as the launch of Microsoft's browser ballot screen offering a choice of web browsers to Windows users across Europe, which competitor Opera claimed had doubled its downloads.

With Internet Explorer falling and Chrome on the rise, The Register reports that the world's second most popular browser - Mozilla Firefox - has reached a 'plateau'. Despite Mozilla claiming to have exceeded 30 per cent of the browser market share after the launch of version 3.0.19 of its browser, Net Applications has revealed that the open source browser only rose to 24.59 in April, compared to 24.52 per cent the previous month and 23.84 per cent this time last year.

If more businesses roll out Windows 7 and more users upgrade to Internet Explorer 8 rather than using the outdated and unpopular IE 6 and IE 7, Microsoft may yet see a turnaround in its browser fortunes - but it may face increasingly tough competition from Google.

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