Apple's Safari Web browser has been gaining market share for the past two months, and is continuing to hit new highs. Safari managed to jump up from 6.25 percent of the browser market in May to 6.31 percent in June, according to data from Market Share.
Safari spent most of 2007 grabbing a bigger piece of the Web browser market, but spent the first four months of 2008 on a plateau around the 5.8 percent mark.
In comparison, Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser has been gradually declining compared to its position last year while Firefox has been slowly gaining market share.
Internet Explorer has dipped to a new all time low with a still dominant 73.01 percent of the market. Firefox, on the other hand, has managed to steadily chip away at Microsoft's lead moving up from a 16.98 percent market share in January to 19.03 percent in June.
While the statistics are handy for getting snapshot overviews of a particular Web browser's popularity, looking at the numbers over time offers a better impression of overall popularity. In this case, the numbers seem to indicate a growing interest in Safari and Firefox at the expense of Internet Explorer.
I am not sure this is really big news. I think most people use multiple browser's these days. Apple for a while their was practically forcing Safari on Windows users through Apple update. So this was bound to get a few takers. Being a Mac user myself I can see some advantage to Safari over Firefox on a Windows machine. But with Firefox 3 coming out. I am not sure how much more interest Safari will get.
One of these days someone will believe Mac is pertinent in the industry. Keep up the good work turning hardly mediocre news into headlines for the Mac community.
Is it known if this increase is due to the iPhone Safari? Since the iPhone platform only has one choice this could account for the increase.
I am both a Mac and Windows user. I use Firefox (now 3) on Windows and Camino on Mac. I have Safari installed on both Mac and Win, but only use it for testing. Then again, that is he only reason I use IE on Windows as well.
For those that use multiple browsers in equal quantities that is of no consequence to the overall usage stats, it is a wash.
In all the % is not all that grand, but hey Safari is doing better than Netscape now isn't it.
the number is really not reliable. consider many people, including downloaded iTune, and somehow got safari too. if apple counts the number of copies dowloaded, yes, i am sure that is pretty high. but really, how many people actually use it, especially windows users. i tried it few time, couldn't find a compelling reason to switch from FireFox. now i have uninstalled safari, will apple deduct one from their findings?
Uh... the numbers are coming from hits, not downloads. BTW if it were based on installs than Windows boxes would have 100% IE usage, since it comes installed.
Anonymous wrote: One of these days someone will believe Mac is pertinent in the industry. Keep up the good work turning hardly mediocre news into headlines for the Mac community.
Poor trolling attempt. You need to work harder than that.
Only a true moron would fail to recognize Apple's consistent leadership in end-user technologies across the board, while every other manufacturer merely follows behind them with mediocre copies of what Apple does better first. The broader market is always the last to recognize real quality. They are always bogged down with whatever currently happens to have mass appeal.
"...practically forcing Safari on Windows..." is a bit of a stretch.
Apple set the check box to download Safari when the end user went to check if any updates were available for Apple products - in this case being iTunes.
Granted maybe it should of been unchecked and the end user select it to download. But its not like Safari was downloaded and installed without any knowledge or notification.
Guest wrote: "...practically forcing Safari on Windows..." is a bit of a stretch.
Apple set the check box to download Safari when the end user went to check if any updates were available for Apple products - in this case being iTunes.
Granted maybe it should of been unchecked and the end user select it to download. But its not like Safari was downloaded and installed without any knowledge or notification.
If I was downloading "freeCodecsANDsmileyTOOLbar.exe" then I wouldn't be so surprised. However, Apple is usually a "clean" company that I don't have to worry about reading every detail of the end user agreement to make sure they aren't screwing with me. That being said, it's a good idea to always read every little detail these days....
CloseViewName:noworryzPosts: 6Joined: 15 Nov 2007 Tue Jul 01, 2008 3:55 pmSubject: Doin' the math
Let's see: 6.31% minus 6.25% is a difference of 0.06% or 6 switchers out of every 10,000 browser users. Be still, my heart! (Fans self with Apple brochure.)
Guest wrote: i tried it few time, couldn't find a compelling reason to switch from FireFox.
I find Safari's speed, stability, standards compliance, and system integration (interface, webclips, access to Services, etc.) to be compelling reasons. In fact, I find it hard to believe that anyone would walk away from those advantages!
Another way to look at it is that Safari's rate of increase in market share month over month (May?June) from 6.25% to 6.31% is 0.96% - not earth-shaking, but not too shabby. If that rate keeps up, Safari's market share will grow over 12 months to 7.05%, for an annual increase of 12.8%. And if that keeps up, Safari will have a 12.5% market share in 5 years and 25% in 10! Ah, but will it keep up, or perhaps grow even faster? Maybe. Not only is the Mac share of the overall computer market slowly increasing but the rate of increase is itself increasing. If Safari's rate of market share growth doubles, it reaches 12.5% in 2 years and 25% in just over 4. So it's all there to play for.
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