February was a good month for almost all of the browsers out there except for Internet Explorer, according to Net Applications. From December 2006 to August 2007 Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser was able to maintain a substantial 79% marketshare. In the last 6 or 7 months, however, they’ve been dropping just under 1% each month. Yep, they’ve lost nearly 5% of their marketshare in the last half of a year.
Of course if IE is losing there has to be other browsers gaining, right? Firefox is the one swooping up most of IE’s marketshare loss having increased over 3% in the last year. Last month it hit its all-time high at 17.27%, which is the same time IE hit its all-time low.
Safari took a small dip in February, but Opera has been steadily increasing rolling in a marketshare of 0.69% last month. Opera just announced that last year was a big year for them having increased their number of monthly users to 20 million, which is 55% more than the previous year.
Browser Marketshare for February 2008
And then there’s the comparison of the operating systems. Naturally Microsoft is going to lead the way with their sheer market domination, but you might be surprised to hear that Windows usage has dropped about 4% in the last 2 years. Apple is the primary cause of the drop in marketshare having gained over 3% themselves in the last two years. And as you can see from this chart the iPhone is even on the board:
Operating System Marketshare for February 2008
In January 2007 the Linux marketshare sat at just 0.35%, and so there has been some significant growth there as well.
It’s becoming apparent from both the browser and operating system stats that users don’t mind turning to other alternatives to get the job done. The vast amounts of content available on the Internet definitely helps ease the transition for users from one browser to another, or from one operating system to another. Microsoft still controls a majority of the market, but given another several more years the tides could really start turning.
I’d be curious to know how AVANT, Maxthon, Slimbrowser and the likes fare in the share of that IE pie.
I believe that’s because many people don’t know about it. As Ubuntu and other Linux distro’s don’t have the money to spend on ad campaigns like Microsoft’s “WOW” campaign for Windows Vista and Apple for Leopard
I don’t think it will be huge, but it’s probably a couple percent between them all. I know Maxthon is pretty huge in China.
True that, I have agree with you on that. I have already set my eyes on my next OS it will either be ReactOS ([reactos.org]) or Haiku OS ([haiku-os.org]) (both are in the infancy). But for now my choice is and looks like will be for a long time Ubuntu Linux.
ReactOS looks pretty amazing with how it will be able to run the Windows applications. Microsoft’s gotta be able to find some way to shut them down.
PSP .001%
I see a huge growth potential for Ubuntu, especially in asia where Vista’s response has been very mild. I am happy for the jump in Linux market share.