Firefox falters, falls to record low in overall browser share
Apple's Safari also sheds combined desktop-mobile share, while Google's
browsers gain impressive ground
By Gregg Keizer (Computerworld (US)) on 06 July, 2014 22:53
Firefox's user share on all platforms - desktop and mobile - has plunged in the
last two months as its desktop browser continued to bleed and its attempt to
capture users on smartphones failed to move the needle, new data shows.
Apple's Safari fared almost as poorly since April, also losing significant user
share, with a continued decline on mobile and a sudden slide on the desktop to
blame.
During June, 17.3% of those who went online surfed the Web using a mobile
browser, according to Aliso Viejo, Calif.-based Net Applications. Mobile
browsing's climb of nearly 6 percentage points in the last 12 months
represented a growth rate of 52%.
As in April, when Computerworld last analyzed desktop + mobile browser user
share, June's numbers put the hurt on Mozilla most of all: Firefox's total user
share -- the combination of desktop and mobile -- was 12.9% for June, its
lowest level since Computerworld began tracking the metric five years ago, and
1.2 percentage points lower than just two months before.
Mozilla's problem remains an inability to attract a mobile audience. Although
the company has long offered Firefox on Android and its Firefox OS has begun to
appear on a limited number of smartphones, its mobile share was just
seven-tenths of one percent, about three times smaller than the
second-from-the-bottom mobile browser, Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
Firefox hasn't helped itself of late, either. For the eighth straight month,
the desktop version lost user share in June, falling by 1.3 percentage points
to end with 15.4%. In the last year, Firefox's desktop user share as measured
by Net Applications has dropped 3.6 percentage points, representing a 19%
decline.
The timing is terrible, as Mozilla's current contract with Google ends in
November. That deal, which assigned Google's search engine as the default for
most Firefox customers, has generated the bulk of Mozilla's revenue. In 2012,
for example, the last year for which financial data was available, Google paid
Mozilla an estimated $272 million, or 88% of all Mozilla income.
Going into this year's contract renewal talks, Mozilla will be bargaining from
a much weaker position, down 43% in total user share since June 2011.
Apple remained behind Mozilla in desktop + mobile browser user share, with a
cumulative 12.3%, down from 13.1% two months earlier. Nearly two-third of its
total was credited to Safari on iOS.
But the browser was hit by a one-two punch in June: Safari on iOS continued to
shed share in June -- it's dropped 7.8 percentage points of mobile-only share
in just the last 90 days, a 14% decline -- and the desktop version fell by
four-tenths of a percentage point. Even so, the gap between Firefox and Safari
has narrowed in the last two months, with the latter, even as it lost share,
making up ground on the former.
Google was again the main beneficiary of the losses suffered by Mozilla and
Apple, adding to its lead over both in June, when it had a combined desktop +
mobile user share of 22.6%, 1.5 percentage points higher than in April.
Together, the stock Android browser and the newer Chrome - primarily, though
not exclusively on Android - accounted for 39.4% of all mobile browsers by Net
Applications' count. With Safari's downward trend and Google's pair on the
upswing, the latter could take first place from Apple on mobile as soon as
October.
But it was Chrome on the desktop that powered Google's rise in combined user
share for June. The browser added 1.6 percentage points to its desktop-only
number, averaging 19.3% for the month. That was a record for desktop Chrome,
which debuted in September 2008.
Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) continued to dominate the desktop, where its
user share was 58.4% for June -- the highest since February 2011 -- but on
mobile, IE remained stuck in the low single digits: 2% for the month. That put
IE's combined share at 48.4%, the same as in April.
Overall, IE remained in a much stronger position than Firefox, as Microsoft has
managed to reverse a long-running decline in IE's desktop share. But Microsoft
faces the same dilemma as Mozilla: Without tablet and smartphone traction,
which will rely on Windows gaining ground on the platforms, IE will slowly lose
influence as mobile gradually erodes the personal computer's decades-long
position as the first choice for browsing.
Norwegian browser maker Opera Software held a combined user share of 2.2% in
June, up from 1.8% in April. Its mobile browsers, Opera Mini and Opera Mobile,
accounted for 62% of the total. A recent deal that places Opera's Android
browser as the default on new Nokia-branded, Microsoft-sold smartphones powered
by an Android variant may fuel further increases.
Net Applications measures browser usage on smartphones, tablets and personal
computers by tabulating approximately 160 million unique visitors each month
who browse to the sites it monitors for customers.
When desktop and mobile browser data are combined, Google has a solid lock on
second place, with almost as much user share as Mozilla and Apple put together.
(Data: Net Applications.)
--
Cheers,
Stephen
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