Analysis – Mozilla achieved an important milestone in November, sailing past 20% market share over an entire month for the first time since its release in November 2004. While Safari and Chrome were able to take over share from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer as well, Mozilla’s Firefox leaped by almost a full percentage point over October, according to data provided by Net Applications. Microsoft will need a compelling new browser rather sooner than later to slow this trend. The company’s Internet Explorer lost 1.5 points over the previous month, bringing the market share loss in 2008 to more than 5.8 points.

Mozilla has been playing with the 20% market share milestone for some time now, beginning with a few days per month in July (following the release of Firefox 3), to a consistent two weeks in October. According to data published by Net Applications, November has been the first month in which the average Firefox market share has topped 20% over a period of an entire month.


November market share numbers: Firefox, Safari and Chrome up; IE and Opera down

Firefox was estimated at 20.78%, up from 19.97% in October. The Internet Explorer dropped in the same time frame from 71.27% to 69.77% - and below the 70% mark for the first time in more than a decade. Apple’s Safari climbed from 6.57% to 7.13%, while Google’s Chrome eclipsed Opera with 0.83% (up from 0.74%) versus 0.71% (down from 0.75%). All numbers are based on the average market share posted for each day during the month.

According to Net Applications, Chrome has hit a new record market share and if we believe the data published, then it is clear that Google’s rapid and automated update cycle for Chrome is a significant contributor to the browser’s market share. Chrome currently stands at version 0.4.154.25 and was most recently updated on Thursday of last week.

The extended Thanksgiving weekend contributed to Firefox’ market share gain, since Firefox is especially strong in the consumer market, while certain Internet Explorer versions, such as IE6 (which still has an average market share of more than 20%), have a strong corporate user base and cause IE’s market share to decline substantially on weekends and holidays. However, Firefox would have posted 20%+ market share even without the Thanksgiving weekend: The browser fell slightly below 20% on only seven days during the month, while posting shares of up to 22.7% on others, according to Net Applications.  

The market research firm also found that Firefox share jumped in the November 4 time frame, surrounding election day.




Mozilla’s wild ride    

Of course, the big news this month is Firefox’ strong gain and milestone achievement. And looking at the browser’s brief history, the gain is even more impressive. Originally launched in November 2004, web analysis firms such as OneStat.com and WebSideStory estimated that Firefox hit a 5%-7% market share within one month after launch and somewhere between 7% and 9% within nine months.

Version 1.5, released in November 2005, was generally believed to have lifted Firefox into the 10% neighborhood. More reports by these firms issued about one year later (November 2006) claimed that Firefox had cleared the 10% mark and was hovering around 11%-13%. While the exact numbers published differed in some cases quite a bit, the trend was clear. Firefox was focused at Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Mozilla was very successful – possibly because Microsoft was not concerned about Firefox’ impact until early 2006.  

By mid 2007, Firefox was estimated at more than 15% market share. With today’s news that Firefox is at almost 21%, it seems that Mozilla is gaining 10% market share about every two years. And at least at this time, there is no indication that this trend will change anytime soon. Firefox market share numbers are substantially higher in certain regions of the world: For example, the browser’s market share in Europe is estimated at about 40% and in the U.S. at about 30%. 57% of TG Daily readers use Firefox.


Read on the next page: Microsoft's Internet Explorer in a downward spiral, IE's problems, Conclusion