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One trend that has continued through 2009 is that the browser wars have become increasingly competitive. According to this report of browser market share, Internet Explorer lost 7% of the market in the year ending in December. This probably isn’t a surprise as it’s been happening ever since Firefox – who celebrated it’s 5th anniversary in 2009 – hit the scene. What is surprising is that Google’s new brower, launched in 2008, now occupies third place, just recently surpassing the Mac-based Safari.
Nonetheless, Internet Explorer retains the lion’s share of the market with 63%, followed by Firefox with 25%. This has important implications when designing and developing a new Web site. However, the most telling sign of what browser your readers are using remains your analytics data.
Looking through the Google Analytics reports of several clients, the market share broke down a little differently. On average, our client Web site were view in Internet Explorer 74% of the time, Firefox 17% and Safari 6%. However, I noticed a wide disparity among browsers depending on target audiences. For instance, for a trade association client whose subscribers average between 40 and 55 years old, the breakdown is Internet Explorer 82%, Firefox 12% and Safari 5%; while a sports blog with a younger following had a breakdown of Internet Explorer 46%, Firefox 32%, Safari 17%.
One explanation for this discrepancy has to do with mobile phone usage and age. A poll by the Marist Institute for Public Opinion shows that more than one-fourth (26%) of those younger than age 45 own a PDA, compared with just 10% of those ages 45+. This means a lot of younger readers are using their mobile device to view Web sites. Generally these devices do not use Internet Explorer as their browser – with the ubiquitous iPhone using the Safari browser.
Therefore when it comes time to test your new Web site in various browsers and allocate resources to ensure compliance, it is crucial to understand your audience segments and recognize which browser they most likely use.
