Category: Global Stats

Microsoft’s Bing overtook Yahoo! as the number two search engine in the United States and worldwide on Thursday (4th June) according to our StatCounter Global Stats data. Bing grabbed market share from Google.

“It remains to be seen if Bing falls away after the initial novelty and promotion but at first sight it looks like Microsoft is on to a winner,” commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter. “Steve Ballmer is quoted as saying that he wanted Microsoft to become the second biggest search engine within five years. Following the breakdown in talks to acquire Yahoo! at a cost of $40bn it looks as if he may have just achieved that with Bing much sooner and a lot cheaper than anticipated.”

Our analysis finds that in the US Bing leapfrogged Yahoo to take second place on 16.28%. Yahoo! has 10.22%. Google still commands the US search engine market with 71.47%.

Globally Bing at 5.62% has taken a narrow lead over Yahoo! (5.13%). Google worldwide retains 87.62% of the market.

StatCounter Global Stats, a free online service which captures market share battles of search engines, browsers and operating systems including mobile, was launched in March this year.

The StatCounter Global Stats research data is based on four billion pageloads per month. Other regional and country breakdowns can be viewed at: http://gs.statcounter.com

Full press release available here.

UPDATE 11 June 2009:
While Bing has fallen back to third place behind Google and Yahoo! it is winning market share for Microsoft against its two main rivals in the US and worldwide according to our latest analysis.

We analyzed search engine market share two weeks before and after the formal launch of Bing on May 28th (14th May to the 27th May and the 28th May to 10th June). For the US market it found:
Google decreased from 78.68% to 77.94% (-0.74%)
Yahoo decreased from 11.46% to 10.76% (-0.7%)
Microsoft (Bing, MSN Search and Live Search) increased from 7.4% to 9% (+1.6%)
(See here and here)

“It is too early to say what the long term result will be but this is a creditable performance by Bing,” commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO StatCounter. “It remains to be seen what happens to Bing after user curiosity and the reported $100m advertising budget runs out.”

Worldwide, comparing the two weeks before and after the Bing launch, StatCounter reports a similar trend with Microsoft taking market share.
Google decreased from 89.81% to 89.69% (-0.12%)
Yahoo decreased from 5.34% to 5.1% (-0.24%)
Microsoft (Bing, MSN Search and Live Search) increased from 3.08% to 3.5% (+0.42%)
(See here and here)

Full press release available here.

Mozilla Firefox 3 overtook Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 6 for the first time in February in the Internet Browser Wars according to monthly data from StatCounter Global Stats – our new free analysis tool.

Internet Explorer 7 continues to lead globally with 41% market share. However, Firefox 3 is now in second place with 24% replacing IE 6.

“Since its launch less than a year ago, Firefox 3 has attained nearly one quarter of the global market,” commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO and founder, StatCounter. “IE 7 is consistently holding about 40% of the global market but IE 6 has fallen from 28% in July last to 22% in February this year.”**

The growth in usage of Firefox 3 can be partly attributed to users upgrading to the new version – Firefox 2 market share has fallen from 16% to 3% in the period.

Microsoft’s combined IE 7 and IE 6 market share has fallen from 68% in July last year to 63% now. IE 8 has gained a toehold in the market of just over 1%. Firefox 3 and 2 has grown from 25% in July last to 27% in February 2009.

** Source: Figures based on monthly StatCounter Global Stats analysis.

StatCounter is delighted to announce the launch of our new free Global Stats tool. The tool records market share of Search Engines, Browsers and Operating Systems including mobile.

You can use StatCounter Global Stats to monitor issues such as:

• how Google’s new browser Chrome is doing against Microsoft Internet Explorer
• how the iPhone is succeeding against traditional market leader Nokia in the mobile browser market – see iPhone Takes Global Lead in Mobile Browser Wars press release

The analysis is currently based on four billion pageloads per month and is updated approximately five times per day.

Users can:

• Create and customize charts
• Download graphs
• Access the raw data
• Sign up for alerts

“This is probably the most comprehensive global web analysis you can get and certainly for free,” commented former Gartner senior executive, Oisin Byrne who now heads independent tech research company, iReach. “StatCounter is shaking up the web research market by being able to provide such comprehensive statistics at no cost to users.”

There is no charge for use of the data or charts but users must reference StatCounter as the source.

Press Queries to:
Kerri Crowley/Ronnie Simpson (Simpson Financial & Technology PR)

Hi folks,

As many of you requested, here are updated browser usage stats. We’ve broken the stats down into Global, US and UK figures. These stats are based on a total sample for the period of over 450 million page views globally. All daily stats are based on the relevant GMT 24 hour periods.

Global Stats – Browser Usage
	IE	Firefox	Safari	Chrome	Other
Sep 01	66.92%	25.26%	2.99%	n/a	4.84%
change	–	–	–	–	–
Sep 02*	67.58%	24.36%	2.91%	n/a	5.06%
change	0.66%	(0.90%)	(0.08%)	n/a	0.22%
Sep 03	67.81%	23.54%	2.70%	1.11%	4.87%
change	0.23%	(0.82%)	(0.21%)	1.11%	(0.19%)
Sep 04	68.59%	23.20%	2.56%	1.16%	4.51%
change	0.78%	(0.34%)	(0.14%)	0.05%	(0.36%)
Sep 05	68.44%	23.22%	2.56%	1.12%	4.66%
change	(0.15%)	0.02%	0.00%	(0.04%)	0.15%
Sep 06	65.46%	25.43%	2.81%	1.16%	5.14%
change	(2.98%)	2.21%	0.25%	0.04%	0.48%
Sep 07	63.15%	26.69%	3.02%	1.18%	5.96%
change	(2.31%)	1.26%	0.21%	0.02%	0.82%
Sep 08	65.89%	24.46%	2.69%	1.10%	5.86%
change	2.74%	(2.23%)	(0.33%)	(0.08%)	(0.10%)
Sep 09	66.27%	24.17%	2.66%	1.07%	5.83%
change	0.38%	(0.29%)	(0.03%)	(0.03%)	(0.03%)
Sep 10	66.28%	24.31%	2.62%	1.05%	5.75%
change	0.01%	0.14%	(0.04%)	(0.02%)	(0.08%)
Sep 11	66.67%	23.95%	2.59%	1.02%	5.77%
change	0.39%	(0.36%)	(0.03%)	(0.03%)	0.02%
Total Change	(0.25%)	(1.31%)	(0.40%)	1.02%	0.93%

US Stats – Browser Usage
	IE	Firefox	Safari	Chrome	Other
Sep 01	61.88%	28.02%	5.77%	N/A	4.32%
change	–	–	–	–	–
Sep 02*	64.92%	25.81%	5.31%	N/A	3.86%
change	3.04%	(2.21%)	(0.46%)	n/a	(0.46%)
Sep 03	64.84%	24.94%	5.31%	0.98%	3.90%
change	(0.08%)	(0.87%)	0.00%	0.98%	0.04%
Sep 04	66.48%	23.92%	4.88%	1.13%	3.57%
change	1.64%	(1.02%)	(0.43%)	0.15%	(0.33%)
Sep 05	65.85%	24.44%	5.07%	1.08%	3.55%
change	(0.63%)	0.52%	0.19%	(0.05%)	(0.02%)
Sep 06	62.74%	26.51%	5.66%	1.05%	4.05%
change	(3.11%)	2.07%	0.59%	(0.03%)	0.50%
Sep 07	60.64%	28.00%	6.26%	1.07%	4.04%
change	(2.10%)	1.49%	0.60%	0.02%	(0.01%)
Sep 08	63.17%	26.42%	5.57%	1.02%	3.84%
change	2.53%	(1.58%)	(0.69%)	(0.05%)	(0.20%)
Sep 09	64.46%	25.49%	5.33%	0.99%	3.73%
change	1.29%	(0.93%)	(0.24%)	(0.03%)	(0.11%)
Sep 10	63.94%	25.99%	5.29%	1.03%	3.74%
change	(0.52%)	0.50%	(0.04%)	0.04%	0.01%
Sep 11	66.32%	24.07%	4.99%	0.96%	3.65%
change	2.38%	(1.92%)	(0.30%)	(0.07%)	(0.09%)
Total Change	4.44%	(3.95%)	(0.78%)	0.96%	(0.67%)

UK Stats – Browser Usage
	IE	Firefox	Safari	Chrome	Other
Sep 01	68.33%	22.77%	4.09%	N/A	4.80%
change	–	–	–	–	–
Sep 02*	67.95%	23.13%	3.96%	N/A	4.79%
change	(0.38%)	0.36%	(0.13%)	n/a	(0.01%)
Sep 03	70.02%	21.34%	3.26%	1.12%	4.26%
change	2.07%	(1.79%)	(0.70%)	1.12%	(0.53%)
Sep 04	69.22%	21.91%	3.31%	1.27%	4.28%
change	(0.80%)	0.57%	0.05%	0.15%	0.02%
Sep 05	69.33%	21.81%	3.18%	1.10%	4.59%
change	0.11%	(0.10%)	(0.13%)	(0.17%)	0.31%
Sep 06	67.73%	22.91%	3.41%	1.15%	4.79%
change	(1.60%)	1.10%	0.23%	0.05%	0.20%
Sep 07	67.83%	23.11%	3.31%	1.16%	4.59%
change	0.10%	0.20%	(0.10%)	0.01%	(0.20%)
Sep 08	69.04%	22.20%	3.32%	0.99%	4.44%
change	1.21%	(0.91%)	0.01%	(0.17%)	(0.15%)
Sep 09	69.34%	21.83%	3.23%	0.89%	4.71%
change	0.30%	(0.37%)	(0.09%)	(0.10%)	0.27%
Sep 10	69.14%	21.92%	3.19%	1.02%	4.73%
change	(0.20%)	0.09%	(0.04%)	0.13%	0.02%
Sep 11	68.71%	22.41%	3.16%	1.01%	4.73%
change	(0.43%)	0.49%	(0.03%)	(0.01%)	0.00%
Total Change	0.38%	(0.36%)	(0.93%)	1.01%	(0.07%)