Chrome and Internet Explorer have carved their way into the top five mobile browsers, according to Net Applications' measurements of browser usage.
(Credit:
Net Applications)
New mobile browsers including Google's Chrome, Microsoft's IE, and Amazon's Silk are gaining
a foothold in a market that's growing faster than traditional browsing on personal computers.
The mobile browsing market has long been dominated by three products. Apple's
Safari has long
held the top spot in usage share measurements by Net Applications, with second place going to
Google's unbranded
Android browser after it surpassed Opera Mini last year.
Safari had 61.0 percent, the Android browser 21.5 percent, and Opera Mini 9.8 percent of usage
in January, measurements released today show.
But new contenders are starting to appear now.
The most assured of success is Chrome, which pushed aside BlackBerry OS's browser last November for fourth
place. Chrome works on Android 4.0, aka Ice Cream Sandwich, or 4.1 and 4.2, aka Jelly Bean,
and now ships with newer Android devices.
Chrome rose from 1.5 percent of use in December to 2.0 percent in January, Net Applications
said.
The next to bump BlackBerry down a peg is Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which rose from 1.2
percent to 1.3 percent to claim fifth place in January.
Tablets and smartphones account for a steadily increasing fraction of browser usage.
(Credit:
Net Applications)
The BlackBerry browser -- which could get a boost if the brand-new BlackBerry 10 OS and its first two
phones, the Q10 and Z10 catch on -- slipped down to 1.2 percent
of browser usage in January.
That's still ahead of Amazon's Silk, at 0.8 percent, or Opera Mobile, at 0.6 percent. And it's far
ahead of Mozilla's
Firefox version for Android, which didn't even cross the 0.05 percent
threshold.
Mobile browsing is on the increase, rising to an all-time high of 11.8 percent of total browsing in
January, according to Net Applications.
On the desktop, Internet Explorer's market share losses have stabilized, according to Net Applications' measurements.
(Credit:
Net Applications)
On PCs, the browser usage share remained relatively stable.
IE remained the leader with 55.1 percent of the market, and Firefox at 19.9 percent kept its edge
over Chrome at 17.5 percent. Safari and Opera stayed level at 5.2 percent and 1.8 percent,
respectively.
Net Applications bases its
usage data on activity logged on a collection of more than 40,000 Web sites with more than
160 million visits each month. It attempts to weight the data to account for differences in its
collection of sites and overall global Internet usage. It also logs only the first Web site visit by a
user on each day, in an attempt to measure what people are using rather than how much they
use it.
A rival measurement service, StatCounter, bases its
measurements on clicks only and doesn't attempt any geographic weighting. It shows different
winners and losers, with Chrome in the lead at 36.5 percent, IE next with 30.7 percent, and Firefox in third place with 21.4 percent.
StatCounter, which uses different methodology for tallying browser usage, shows Chrome as the top worldwide browser for January 2013.
(Credit:
StatCounter)
Chrome, IE, Silk pry open mobile-browsing market
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