New figures from Net Applications show that July was a strong month for Apple’s Safari: the browser jumps from a 7.48 percent share of the worldwide browser market in June to 8.05 percent in July. Safari was one of only two browsers to gain ground during the month: the other was the traditionally fast-expanding Google Chrome, which went from a 13.11 percent share in June to 13.45 percent in July.
Net Applications’ figures also show Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (all versions) took a dive during the month, dropping to 52.81 percent—a nearly nine-tenths of a point drop since June. If Internet Explorer continues its share decline at its current rate, it could drop below the 50 percent threshold by the end of 2011—which would certainly mark a victory for all other browser makers.
Firefox—which just rolled out Firefox 5 as part of its new rapid release methodology—saw its share dip from 21.67 percent in JUne to 21.48 percent in July.
Microsoft has been urging people to stop using the compatibility- and security-deficient Internet Explorer 6 in favor of more modern browsers, and that effort may be paying off: Internet Explorer 6 has seen its share of the global browser market decline from 15.5 percent in September of 2010 to 9.24 percent in July 2011. However, it remains the second most-common browser in Microsoft’s stable, exceeded only by Internet Explorer 8, which accounted for a 29.30 percent share in July—that’s more than all versions of Firefox combined. Folks running Windows XP (which Microsoft would also like to see go away) can’t upgrade to the latest Internet Explorer 9, so they may be sticking with IE8 or trying out browsers like Chrome and Firefox that will still run on XP.
Microsoft has been pushing Internet Explorer 9 as the way forward for Windows 7 users, and that argument may be working: if results are isolated to just Windows 7 users, Internet Explorer 9 saw an increase of 3 percent between June and July.
