Google Chrome has extended its lead over Mozilla Firefox in South Africa, while Apple’s Safari keeps its upward trend, and Microsoft Internet Explorer continues to lose page views, according to the latest browser usage data from StatCounter.
Globally, Firefox has taken a sharp dive while Internet Explorer’s decline seems to have slowed, but Chrome remains in the lead with 34.21% of the page views.
Chrome pulled ahead of Internet Explorer (IE) in May 2012 after Microsoft’s browser took a sharp dive from 34.07% share to 32.12%.
Net Applications, a company that runs its own web analytics system, paints a somewhat different picture to StatCounter, however.
According to their stats, Internet Explorer is comfortably in the lead with 53.63% of the global browser market share, followed by Firefox (20.08%), and then Chrome (18.86%).
The disparity between the two analytics companies is attributed to the different way in which they rank browsers: StatCounter measures market share based on raw pageviews, whereas Net Applications uses unique visitors weighted by the number of Internet users in a country.
| Desktop browser stats: 2012 September | |||
| Browser | Net Applications: Global | StatCounter: Global | StatCounter: South Africa |
| Internet Explorer | 53.63% | 32.7% | 47.03% |
| Firefox | 20.08% | 22.4% | 19.32% |
| Chrome | 18.86% | 34.21% | 22.41% |
| Safari | 5.26% | 7.7% | 8.26% |
| Opera | 1.62% | 1.61% | 1.09% |
| Other | 0.56% | 1.38% | 1.89% |
StatCounter browser map – September 2012
Mobile browser stats
With the browser war heating up in the mobile space it’s interesting to look at the statistics available for that as well.
Here StatCounter and NetApplications have differing approaches as well, this time making it impossible to compare their statistics side-by side.
As with their desktop browser stats, Net Applications measures unique visitors weighted by the number of Internet users in a country. They also consider tablet PCs and mobile phones together:
| NetMarketshare Mobile/tablet browser stats: 2012 September | |
| Browser | Net Applications: Global |
| Safari | 64.01% |
| Android | 20.94% |
| Opera Mini | 9.55% |
| BlackBerry | 1.37% |
| Symbian | 1.08% |
| Other | 3.04% |
StatCounter, on the other hand, recently explained on Twitter that devices such as the iPad do not meet their definition of a “mobile device”.
This means that the statistics shown in the table below do not include the page views of a mobile browser from tablet PCs that might be running it.
| StatCounter mobile browser stats: September 2012 | ||
| Browser | StatCounter: South Africa | StatCounter: Global |
| Opera | 57.97% | 19.27% |
| Android | 11.69% | 25.1% |
| iPhone | 11.55% | 20.62% |
| BlackBerry | 3.03% | 4.27% |
| UC Browser | 1.18% | 7.35% |
| Samsung | 0.76% | N/A |
| IE Mobile | 0.7% | N/A |
| NetFront | 0.61% | 4.01% |
| Nokia | N/A | 10.61% |
| iPod Touch | N/A | 2.09% |
| Dolfin | N/A | 1.21% |
| Other | 2.71% | 4.65% |
StatCounter mobile browser map – September 2012
Related articles
Chrome overtakes Firefox in SA
Google Chrome overtakes Microsoft Internet Explorer
Browser wars escalate in the mobile space
Loading ...
Join the conversation