Technology

Google Chrome Tops Internet Explorer in Browser Wars

Paul Ausick

Published: May 3, 2016 8:35 am

Last Updated: January 13, 2020 9:57 am

Depending on who’s doing the counting and just exactly what’s being counted, Google’s Chrome browser from Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL) just passed Microsoft Corp.’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) Internet Explorer (IE) as the world’s most popular desktop browser. Chrome nabbed a 41.71% share of the global browser market compared with 41.33% for IE in April, according web traffic monitor NetMarketShare. The IE total includes the tally for Microsoft Edge, which shipped with Windows 10.

Rival web traffic counter StatCounter has had Chrome leading the global browser wars since May of 2012, and reports an April share of nearly 53%. Adding in mobile-device browsers, StatCounter shows Chrome with more than 44% of the global market at the end of April, more than double IE’s total of nearly 20%.

Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) Safari browser gets about 4.5% of the desktop market, according to NetMarketShare, and about 5.2% according to StatCounter. Including mobile devices, StatCounter reports Safari gets 13% of the browser market.

On mobile devices (smartphones and tablets), StatCounter shows nearly 30% for Chrome and about 26% for Safari. IE’s mobile browser checks in with less than 2% of the mobile market. NetMarketShare reports that Chrome has nearly 50% of the mobile browser market, compared with 29% for Safari and just 3.9% for IE.

Google claims a whopping 71.35% of the global desktop search market, while Microsoft’s Bing gets about 12%. In the mobile market, Google’s search share is a staggering 95%, according to NetMarketShare.