Chrome squeaks past Safari in US

Google Chrome and Apple's Safari have swapped spots in their skirmish to determine which browser can capture one-third the US market share of Firefox and one-sixth that of Internet Explorer.

"There is a battle royal going on between Google and Apple in the internet browser space (Chrome v Safari) as well as in the mobile market (Android v iPhone)," said Aodhan Cullen, the CEO of StatCounter, which issued their report Monday.

There's a "battle royal" in the mobile space, to be sure, but the tiff between Chrome and Safari is merely a squabble over which browser can claim the role of also-ran to an also-ran.

It could be worse for Google and Apple — they could be Opera

Chrome, according to StatCounter, has more than twice Safari's market share globally — 9.4 per cent versus 4 per cent — and so this new US market-share ranking, which was compiled from data obtained from 874 million page views last week, should come as no surprise.

"This is quite a coup for Google as they have gone from zero to almost 10 per cent of the US market in under two years," said Cullen.

Perhaps, but Apple is turning its eye in other directions these days. Apple sold sold 1.7 million iPhone 4s over the weekend, each of which will begin to be be stuffed with Apple's latest revenue stream, iAds, on July 1.

Odds are that Cupertino isn't worried about Chrome's 8.97 per cent US market share squeaking past Safari's 8.88 per cent. ®