Chrome Surges Past IE Market Share for the First Time

Google has done what no other browser makes could do over the past 13 years; Chrome surpassed IE for the first time in market share.

Chrome was estimated by StatCounter to have held 32.71 percent of the browser market on Sunday, while IE declined to 32.48 percent and Mozilla was at 24.88 percent. Chrome is a so-called weekend browser that is stronger on Saturdays and Sundays than during week. In contrast IE loses market share on weekends. The most popular browser version was Chrome 17 with 29.51 percent. IE9 was a distant second with just 15.6 percent. IE8, Firefox 10 and Firefox 11 followed with 13.56 percent, 9.91 percent, and 6.86 percent, respectively.

So far, Chrome has only surpassed IE on a single day, but there is a good chance that the browser will permanently exceed IE market share by May 2012. When Chrome exceeded Firefox market share for the first time last year, it took the browser about six weeks to consistently pull ahead of Mozilla's browser.

For the entire month, IE still has the lead. The browser currently stands at 34.78 percent. Chrome is at 30.91 percent and Firefox at 25.04 percent. In StatCounter's charts, Microsoft will surrender about 0.9 points of share this month, Google will gain about 1 point and Mozilla will add about 0.2 points.

There is no clear information when Microsoft gained the market share lead with Internet Explorer. The best information available comes courtesy of the EWS Web Server Survey at UIUC, which, however, was abandoned in late 1998. The survey found that IE surpassed Netscape Navigator market share in Q4 of 1998 when it captured 50.43 percent of the market and Netscape dropped to 46.87 percent.

You need to be logged to post a comment

There are 39 Comments. B

Top Comments

24

jackofhearts495 , March 20, 2012 1:27 AM

I'm not surprised that IE is so much stronger on weekdays than Chrome -- most (if not all) schools, etc. use IE. Personally, I have to put up with IE at school, but when I come home on the weekends, it's Chrome 100%...
12

victorious 3930k , March 20, 2012 1:34 AM

jackofhearts495I'm not surprised that IE is so much stronger on weekdays than Chrome -- most (if not all) schools, etc. use IE. Personally, I have to put up with IE at school, but when I come home on the weekends, it's Chrome 100%...

Copy that.
11

QEFX , March 20, 2012 2:26 AM

Still using Opera & FF ... good job Chrome, but I just don't like you.

At least we have more than 2 options now, all of which are at least fairly good (yes even IE).

Other Comments

24

jackofhearts495 , March 20, 2012 1:27 AM

I'm not surprised that IE is so much stronger on weekdays than Chrome -- most (if not all) schools, etc. use IE. Personally, I have to put up with IE at school, but when I come home on the weekends, it's Chrome 100%...
12

victorious 3930k , March 20, 2012 1:34 AM

jackofhearts495I'm not surprised that IE is so much stronger on weekdays than Chrome -- most (if not all) schools, etc. use IE. Personally, I have to put up with IE at school, but when I come home on the weekends, it's Chrome 100%...

Copy that.
7

rocknrollz , March 20, 2012 1:34 AM

I used to use IE for school too. But fortunately I am able to use chrome. I am a 24/7 chrome user.
10

LuckyDucky7 , March 20, 2012 1:41 AM

And, if Firefox and Chrome had the ability to be easily administered through standard Group Policy, that number would be much higher; as it stands right now, you can't lock out some tool from installing a toolbar or other stupid add-on with the stock version of Chrome or Firefox (but you can with IE).
10

danwat1234 , March 20, 2012 1:56 AM

If firefox could render pages with more than 1 CPU like Chrome, then it'd probably be more popular. I know I would use it then.
7

anonymous@guest , March 20, 2012 1:59 AM

I have used chrome since the beginning, it's stable, fast and safe .
5

synd , March 20, 2012 2:07 AM

The only reason why IE still has such a high marker share is because of schools/work places/random uneducated internet users.
No one will ever use IE if he knew about Firefox/Chrome/Opera
4

mobrocket , March 20, 2012 2:19 AM

so that is why i saw MSFT run an ad for IE on tv last night...
7

Hypertraxx , March 20, 2012 2:21 AM

i used to be a internet explorer user like you, but than i toke a chrome in the knee
11

QEFX , March 20, 2012 2:26 AM

Still using Opera & FF ... good job Chrome, but I just don't like you.

At least we have more than 2 options now, all of which are at least fairly good (yes even IE).
5

audioee , March 20, 2012 2:37 AM

Is there anyway to tell the difference in market share from mobile and desktop/laptop OS versions of the browser?
5

TwoDigital , March 20, 2012 2:39 AM

Um, I like Chrome but I'm going to have to call shenanigans on this just like the similar story last month... http://netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=0&qpcustomd=0&qptimeframe=M
1

redeye , March 20, 2012 2:40 AM

i switched to chrome, after using opera... chrome is the fastest browser on my computer when using the "peacekeeper" benchmark... 4000 chrome, 3400 opera, and firefox is the slowest... (ie don't know about)
also chrome runs everything that that benchmark checks for , theora, webm, avc, etc whereas the others fail on one thing or the other.
3

Benihana , March 20, 2012 3:02 AM

Nice, I'm a Firefox fan myself, but as long as Google keeps pushing innovation I'm happy. Microsoft loosing it's footing is just an added bonus.
2

A Bad Day , March 20, 2012 4:14 AM

jackofhearts495I'm not surprised that IE is so much stronger on weekdays than Chrome -- most (if not all) schools, etc. use IE. Personally, I have to put up with IE at school, but when I come home on the weekends, it's Chrome 100%...

"We aren't upgrading from IE6, our tech department has a bigger fish to fry."

Yeah, my school is still using that dinosaur. At least they upgraded from Windows 2000 to XP, in 2009. Though there was a hospital that was still using Windows NT 4.0 since last year.
2

back_by_demand , March 20, 2012 4:18 AM

I can't see a permanent overtaking happen anytime soon, it's not just schools its business as well, a lot of the bigger corporations that have the millions of workers have a locked down profile so only the incumbent IE is available and users have no option to install an alternative.
...
Sure there will be the odd company that allows local admin rights and people put whatever they want on, but the ability to install a browser is no different than installing any other kind of software and thats a BIG no-no from the Security departments perspective. So unless they pre-load your system with Firefox or Chrome then I think IE will be safe Monday to Friday.
7

devBunny , March 20, 2012 5:04 AM

Chrome Surges Past IE Market Share for the First Time

Chrome ... 32.71 percent
IE ........... 32.48 percent

That's a surge? I detect a surge in hyped headlines. You lured me here under false pretences! ;-P
3

tomfreak , March 20, 2012 5:41 AM

I still have prob from cache reading error from Chrome from time to time. Whats wrong with google. Fix this.
3

beayn , March 20, 2012 8:03 AM

danwat1234If firefox could render pages with more than 1 CPU like Chrome, then it'd probably be more popular. I know I would use it then.

It sorta does.. plugin_container is its own thread, so if you're on a flash heavy site (but not a fully flash site) it's multithreaded!
3

xerroz , March 20, 2012 8:31 AM

Looks like google's down a good job with pushing their browser. Just about every piece of software out there, whether free or paid, asks if you want Chrome installed. Not to mention that Chrome ads are constantly seen on Youtube and gmail

Display more comments