Microsoft Losing Market Share in Browser and OS Markets

According to research firm Net Applications, Microsoft Internet Explorer's worldwide market share slipped to 68% in December 2008. While Internet Explorer continues to be the world's most used browser, Mozilla's open source browser, Firefox, has steadily gained market share over the past several years. In December 2008, Firefox's market share climbed to over 21%.

The previous month, November 2008, marked the first time that Firefox's market share exceeded 20% since Net Applications began tracking browser usage. November also marked the first time that Internet Explorer's market share had fallen below 70%. In 2004, when tracking began, IE's market share was over 90% and Firefox's share was less than 4%.

While analysts expect Firefox to continue gaining market share, they also note that the numbers are slightly skewed in Firefox's favor during the holidays since the open source browser has a much larger residential market share than corporate share.

December 2008 also saw market share gains for Apple's Safari and Google's Chrome. Safari, the world's third leading browser, captured a market share of just below 8% for the month. Google continues to lead the search engine market, commanding 81% of worldwide searches. However, even with the search giant intermittently advertising Chrome on its website, few users are switching to Google's browser. Still, for the first time since the days immediately following its launch, Google's Chrome had a market share above 1%.

Net Applications' data also shows that the decline in Microsoft Internet Explorer's worldwide market share is mirrored by a decline in Microsoft's share of the global operating system market. In November 2008, Microsoft Windows' market share fell below 90% for the first time since the firm began tracking operating systems in 2004. The decline in Windows usage also corresponds to a rise in Apple Computer usage. In December, Apple's Mac OS had a market share of 9.63%. Linux, the third leading operating system, continues to have a market share of less than 1%.