Microsoft continues to lose browser share to Google

Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer browser continues to fade in popularity because of in-roads made by Google Inc.'s Chrome, according to the latest market share information from a pair of data trackers.
Usage of Microsoft's browser has declined steadily in recent years, due in part to the rising popularity of newer products like Chrome. At one point, Microsoft had more than 90% of the market. Now, while industry trackers differ on the exact numbers, the conclusion is the same: Internet Explorer continues to lose world-wide market share, especially when comparing year-over-year numbers. According to NetApplications.com, which tracks Web usage, Internet Explorer's share was 54% in June, down from 60% a year ago and about flat from May. Another data tracker, StatCounter, had Internet Explorer at just 44% in June, down from 53% a year ago and about flat from May.
Most of Microsoft's recent decline appears due to Chrome, which has seen its usage basically double over the past year. Google, long dominant in the Internet-search engine market, originally built Chrome in part because of concerns that existing browsers would fail to support its Web services or steer users away from its search engine.
According to NetApplications.com, Chrome's June 2011 share was 13%, up from 7.2% a year earlier and a slight gain from May; StatCounter, meanwhile, says Chrome has 21% of the browser market share, up from 9.2% a year ago, 19% in May and 2.8% in June 2009.
"It is a superb achievement by Google to go from under 3% two years ago to over 20% today," StatCounter Chief Executive Aodhan Cullen said. "While Google has been highly effective in getting Chrome downloaded, the real test is actual browser usage, which our stats measure." Google shares recently rose 1.7% to $515.12, while Microsoft added 4 cents to $26.04.
Chrome is just the latest challenger to Internet Explorer. In recent years, Microsoft had lost at least a fifth of the market to Firefox, an open-source browser built with contributions from volunteer programmers overseen by the Mozilla Foundation, a nonprofit group descended from an organization created by Netscape Communications Corp. in the late 1990s.

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