Fresh statistics have been released into the wild by Net Applications for September 2011. Net Applications’ statistics are based on the activity of about 160 million visitors per month to Web sites using its services.
These are the latest figures on the performance of the Internet’s Masters of the Universe:
- Internet Explorer: 54.39 – 55.31 = 0.92 percent.
- Firefox: 22.48 – 22.57 = 0.09 percent.
- Chrome: 16.20 – 15.51 = 0.69 percent.
- Safari: 5.02 – 4.64 = 0.38 percent.
- Opera: 1.67 – 1.68 = 0.01 percent.
- Others: 0.23 – 0.29 = 0.06 percent.
COMMENTS:
Again, there are no surprises in these latest numbers. Microsoft Internet Explorer is splashing red ink all over the place as usual. In the last ten months IE has lost a walloping 5.96 percent. The leakage of red ink seems to be irreversible. I know Redmond is working hard to come back with a polished desktop browser and a mobile browser as well. How well it will be received remains to be seen as new players are jumping into the arena. Amazon recently announced a consumer tablet known as the Kindle Fire with its own custom-made web browser called Silk. Amazon defines Silk as a “split” browser, meaning it gets half its computing power from the device, and the other half from Amazon’s EC2 cloud computing servers.
Mozilla’s Firefox is fighting tooth and nail to retain its fragile second place. It lost 0.09 of a percentage point last month. My gut feeling is that soon they will have to move to third place ceding its position to an invigorated and unstoppable Google Chrome.
Google Chrome continued its steady rise, from 15.51 percent to 16.20 percent. That’s a hike of 0.69 percent. The growing trend is unequivocally clear. They are heading north full speed ahead and will soon bump Firefox to third place. Google is also very active in the mobile phone arena where Android is rapidly becoming a favorite operating system for cellphones. The race in this category is red-hot with Google, Apple and Opera trying to take the lead. The current race is to design the perfect browser for the hand-held tablets where Apple is a front-runner candidate to nail down the gold. However, with the announcement of the Amazon Fire tablet, things could sour up the apple juice, if you get what I mean.
Apple Safari continues its upward trend. It gained 0.38 percentage points in September. The acceptance of the iPad tablet worldwide is a fact and this sustainable success will positively affect the spread of Safari. This means more users of Safari and a better a market share position in the future. One caution here, there is a new player in the field which could rain on Apple’s parade. It will interesting to watch how Amazon’s Kindle Fire performs after November 15 when it will be released into the wild.
