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Chrome edges out IE for desktop browser crown

Microsoft slips to second in market share

Google's Chrome displaced Internet Explorer as the top desktop browser by market share in April.

This according to data from web monitors at Net Applications, which has Chrome narrowly edging out IE to win the top market share spot amongst desktop and notebook users. Net Applications lumps IE and Edge into the same figure.

According to the stats, Chrome logged a 41.67 per cent share of all traffic last month, just ahead of Microsoft's 41.37 per cent. Firefox was a distant third, at 9.76 per cent, followed by Apple's Safari with 4.91 per cent of all desktop traffic, and the Opera browser with a 1.89 per cent cut.

Net Applications takes its browser stats from traffic to the 40,000 or so websites using its analytics tools worldwide. The biz claims about 160 million unique visitors hit its network a month.

Browser market share April 2015

Graphs via Net Applications

Net Applications data suggests that Chrome has seen its share of the market explode over the last year. In April of last year, the monitoring house had Chrome at just 25.68 per cent of all desktop users, compared to a 55.83 per cent market share for Microsoft.

By October, Chrome had narrowed the gap by claiming a 31.12 per cent share of the market compared to IE's 50.88 per cent. April marks the first month that Chrome has had a larger share of the desktop market than IE.

While Chrome's gains in share have largely been at the expense of Internet Explorer, Mozilla's Firefox browser has also seen its user share slide a bit. In April of 2015, Firefox laid claim to 11.7 per cent of the market. Market share rose slightly over the year, peaking at 12.24 per cent in December, only to fall under 10 per cent by last month.

Over on the mobile side, Chrome has long held the overall lead thanks to the prevalence of the Android mobile OS, which uses Chrome as its browser. According to Net Applications, Chrome has 49.3 per cent of the mobile market, ahead of Safari (iOS) with a 29.33 per cent share. Microsoft, meanwhile, is fifth in mobile with a 3.83 per cent market share. ®

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