Search engines drive virtually all business, as more and more consumers rely solely on the online marketplace for reviews, recommendations and products they need. Which search engine is dominating the industry these days? The Google Chrome web browser is far and away a consumer favorite, with 70% of the market share belonging to this popular browser. Analytics company Net Applications reported that Chrome’s market share rose again in June, the latest such gain in 6 straight months.
Net Applications undertook a study among their clients to ascertain the growth or decline of the most popular search engines on the market in 2020.
The company calculates data and figures market share by identifying the agent strings of the browsers utilized to reach the websites of Net Applications’ clients. The firm tabulates visitor sessions in order to measure browser activity and estimate market share for each.
What The Data Showed
The browser market clearly belongs to Google at this point in time. IN fact, there is no scenario we can envision which would dethrone Chrome anytime in the foreseeable future.
Upon reaching the 70% level, Chrome became only the third browser in internet history to achieve such dominance. The past record holders were Netscape Navigator in the 1990s and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer the decade following. Chrome’s ascent may not be sustainable for much longer, unless one of their competitors bows out of the market altogether. But that doesn’t take away from a bright prognosis, with gains expected to continue through the year, culminating in a 72% share by the end of 2020.
The only possible challenger to Chrome is Microsoft’s Edge, but only if businesses, universities and other large organizations adopt the platform. Microsoft’s two browsers, Edge and IE, combined together showed a slight uptick in share, to 12.6% in June. Although IE helped Edge to gain a bit, it is at a record low 4.5% of market share on its own. Microsoft still considers IE an important enterprise tool in their tool belt, likely due to a handful of large and influential customers who require – and demand – ongoing support. Still, it is expected that IE will continue to decline and be gone completely by January 2022.
Firefox Fights for Lost Market Share
June was another good month for Mozilla Firefox, which has seen increased market share since April – although at 7.6%, its share is diminutive compared to Google Chrome. Even though slowly inching upward, Firefox holds onto third place in the rankings, still behind Microsoft Edge. (Firefox ceded the second place spot in March 2020) However, the lead of Edge is shrinking, with the difference between the two only being five-tenths of a percentage point. Given the current trends, experts don’t believe that Edge will ever lose its position, but that instead Firefox will begin to drop back again. Computerworld’s latest forecast has approximated the Mozilla browser’s market share will stay above 7% until December, then begin a steady decline towards 6% by the end of 2021. Firefox fans are anxiously watching, as a continued decline may mean a loss of support for the browser in the future.
Lower in the Net Applications’ data rankings is Apple’s Safari dropping to 3.6%, its lowest ranking in 9 months. Opera software’s Opera remained flat, ending June holding only 1.1% of the browser market.
Alliance IT provides professional IT managed services to Sarasota area business. If your organization needs guidance on how to implement the most strategic technologies for your organization, schedule a consultation today.
