Falling Microsoft Internet Explorer Market Share 2002-2007

By Angsuman Chakraborty, Gaea News Network
Friday, December 7, 2007

Microsoft Internet Explorer Market Share 2002-2007Microsoft was the sole leading browser (all versions combined) in 2002-2003 with over 85% of market share. The earlier leader Netscape had by then sunk into oblivion. Flash forward 2007 and we can see Microsoft Internet Explorer barely holding on to over 50% market share with its fortunes steadily declining. It is still at 57% (all versions combined) as of October 2007.

The much hyped Internet Explorer 7 didn’t have any impact on overall market share of Internet Explorer which has been steadily after declining after July 2003. It is too early to say whether Internet Explorer 7 will have a steadying effect on Microsoft’s declining fortunes in browser war. Internet Explorer 7 appears to a cannibalizing the user base of Internet Explorer 6 but doesn’t appear to be converting from other browsers.

Source data: w3schools

As of September 2007, Firefox is the single most popular browser with a share of 36% and steadily increasing. It is crystal clear at this point that Firefox is the browser of the future. However web developers still needs to test web pages on Internet Explorer 6, in addition to Firefox. It is also advisable to include Internet Explorer 7 as it is a rising star. Opera and Safari continue to be fringe players. Internet Explorer 5.5 is irrelevant.
Filed under: Browser, Company, Firefox, Headline News, Internet Explorer, Microsoft, Web, Web 2.0, Web Services
Discuss Bellow
Discussion

Angsuman Chakraborty
December 8, 2007: 9:08 pm

My website stats (Google Analytics) show very similar trends. So the stats are not out of place. It shows that IE market is definitely and steadily declining.

BTW: You forgot to include two relevant sentences from the same page:

“Anyway, our data, collected from W3Schools’ log-files, over a five year period, clearly shows the long and medium-term trends.”
That is exactly the purpose of this article too.

“The statistics above are extracted from W3Schools’ log-files, but we are also monitoring other sources around the Internet to assure the quality of these figures.”

That should clear the picture, no?

Marcus
December 8, 2007: 7:29 pm

To be credible you really should have put a disclaimer on the article and chart.

From the w3schools page where you say your sourced the info:

W3Schools is a website for people with an interest for web technologies. These people are more interested in using alternative browsers than the average user. The average user tends to use Internet Explorer, since it comes preinstalled with Windows. Most do not seek out other browsers.

These facts indicate that the browser figures above are not 100% realistic. Other web sites have statistics showing that Internet Explorer is used by at least 80% of the users.

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