Fresh statistics have been released into the wild by Net Applications for December 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 behemoths of the Internet as far as web browsing is concerned.
- Internet Explorer: 51.87 – 52.64 = 0.85 percent
- Firefox: 21.83 – 22.14 = 0.31 percent
- Chrome: 19.11 – 18.18 = 0.93 percent
- Safari: 4.97 – 5.00 = 0.03 percent
- Opera: 1.66 – 1.55 = 0.11 percent
- Others: 0.55 – 0.49 = 0.06 percent
COMMENTS:
There are no surprises in these numbers. When Net Application’s figures came out, I suspect Steve Ballmer’s office temperature dropped by several degrees. Microsoft for several years got their eyes off the ball, and IE was hurting bad. It still is. Furthermore, Windows and the office suites are no longer invulnerable. An example is Google’s Doc, a well-known office productivity software. Ballmer seemed to grab the wrong end of the stick on several occasions in his dealing with social networks, cell phones, and the Internet.
Microsoft Internet Explorer’s boat has its rudder stuck, and the only way the vessel can sail is south. The leakage of red ink seems to be irreversible.
Mozilla’s Firefox is fighting tooth and nail to retain its fragile second place. It’s been on a free fall for several months. Last month it lost 0.31 points precariously moving south to Mexico. My strong feeling is that soon they will have to move to a third place ceding its position to unstoppable Google Chrome.
Google Chrome continued its steady rise, from 18.18 to 19.11 percent. That’s a hike of a walloping 0.93 percent. The growing trend is very 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 sweet spot is the browser used in computing tablets where Apple is a front-runner candidate to nail down the gold.
Apple Safari last month lost 0.03 percentage points of global market share. I wasn’t expected this small decline, since the iPad 2 and the iPhone 4 S sold very well during the holidays.
