Internet Explorer 9 Skips Ahead of Opera in Browser Usage
Internet Explorer 9 Skips Ahead of Opera in Browser Usage
Posted 05/02/2011 at 7:27am
| by Paul Lilly
6
Comments
Print
Up until today, the jury was still deliberating on whether Microsoft's decision to skip XP support for its Internet Explorer 9 browser and focus its attention squarely on Windows 7 was sound or stupid. Judging by the market share numbers, it appears Microsoft knew what it was doing. According to data from Net Applications, IE9's share of the browser market more than doubled in the month of April compared to one month prior.
"After one month, Internet Explorer 9 is benefiting from Windows 7 momentum and has doubled its usage share on Windows 7 from 3.5 percent last month to 7.5 percent in April," Net Applications said. "Also, Internet Explorer 9's daily usage share for the last day of the month (April 30th) hit 9.95 percent worldwide on Windows 7."
It was enough to jump way past Opera 11.x, which now claims a 2.18 percent share of the market, and nip at the heels of Mozilla's Firefox 4 browser (7.46 percent) with less than a percentage point separating the two. Perhaps more importantly, however, is that IE9 is being well received at a time when Microsoft's dominance of the browser market is finally being threatened. Since January 2010 until April 2011, IE's total market share has dropped from 62.12 percent to 55.11 percent, while Google's Chrome browser has more than doubled from 5.22 percent to 11.94 percent during that same time frame.
Image Credit: cybernetnews.com
More like this
6
Comments
Comments are closed on this article
someuid
May 02, 2011 at 3:14pm
I don't know why Microsoft bothers to report this. Those who choose not to use IE won't come back to it even if Microsoft reported 105% usage.
Those who do use IE barely know what a brower is and that other options exist.
If anything, this is a black eye for MS. According to this site, they have some 80% of the market in OSes, but only 40% of the browser market. Half their customers have jumped ship!
OliverSudden
May 02, 2011 at 10:49am
In other news, Diet Pepsi edges past Mr. Pibb as the most popular soft drink for 19-year-olds.
Eoraptor
May 02, 2011 at 10:31am
Well of course it's being well recieved, it's finally catching up to functions all the other browsers have had for years (I'm looking right at you download manager) and it's only supplanting IE 7 and 8 in windows installs. and considering that half of windwos users still run XP, it's gonna be hamstrung right about 50% of usage.
give me a call if it manages to surpass that then I'll pay attention, but right now it's just cannibalizing older installs, not gaining users like all the other browsers.
lien_meat
May 02, 2011 at 10:03am
<p>Opera doesn't exactly have a ton of marketshare, despite it being a fantastic browser. If IE9 can catch chrome or ff, then we have something worth talking about. Right now it's meerly replacing the IE8 installs on people's machines that run win7.</p>
<p>Lets not forget that nearly half of the OS world still runs xp saddly, and the others that aren't running win7 or vista, are running mac or linux, which don't run IE9. There's a good 60% of the market that plain old can't run IE9, that CAN run the new chrome and ff releases. (65% from ~45% winxp, ~10% mac, ~5% linux/other)</p>
growler
May 02, 2011 at 9:16am
Internet Explorer 9 was installed by the windows Update...add Opera to windows updates and let's see how well they do.
Neufeldt2002
May 02, 2011 at 8:37am
Well received, or just being shoved onto users that don't know better?
Please make publish to facebook opt-in, not opt-out.
Connect with MaximumPC
Featured Content
The gang discusses the GTX 690, Trinity, Ivy Bridge, Amazon, big-box stores, MMOs,...
This month's issue
Feature
Build a PC On Any Budget
Feature
Cloud Services Showdown
How-To
Encrypt Your External Drive
Build It
Upgrade an X58 Rig
Most Commented Articles
Latest Max PC Tweets
- maximumpc: Original RickRoll Video Returns to YouTube After 24-Hour Copyright Hiatus http://t.co/MaH9Sxyy1 day 15 hours ago
- maximumpc: Corsair has decided not to go forward with its $78 million IPO, citing weak equity market conditions http://t.co/A5a4DAzj1 day 15 hours ago
- maximumpc: Want to work at Maximum PC? Our Online Managing Editor, Alex, is moving away, so we need a new one. http://t.co/9Z7JCh0E3 days 13 hours ago
