The surprise release of Google Chrome at the beginning of September triggered a great degree of interest in the web market. One month on, what is this new browser doing and how have competing browser market shares evolved? Below, XiTi Monitor brings you the latest figures for the browser market in Europe.

Perimeter:

Study conducted from April 1 to September 30, 2008

Cross-section of 145,506 websites audited by XiTi

Just a few weeks after its surprise launch, Google Chrome has not really been a knockout in Europe

Google Chrome, launched on Tuesday, September 2, 2008, has now been around for a little over a month. How is it doing in Europe now, compared with the main rival browsers?

The graph below presents the average market share achieved by the various browsers in Europe, for visits during the week of September 22 to 28, 2008. Google Chrome achieved an average visit rate of 1.07% in Europe, taking fifth place behind Safari (2.55%), Opera (4.24%), Mozilla Firefox (31.42%) and Internet Explorer (60.12%).

Now let’s see how Google Chrome has developed since its release. The graph below shows Google Chrome's average share of European visits during the period from September 3 to 30, 2008. The conclusion is a fairly clear one: Google Chrome recorded its highest average share of European visits on the day after its release and has been losing ground ever since:

1.59% of European visits, on average, on Wednesday, September 3, 2008,

vs. 1.16% on Wednesday, September 10, 2008,

vs. 1.07% on Wednesday, September 17, 2008,

vs. 1.04% on Wednesday, September 24, 2008,

and lastly, 1.03% to close the month of September.

After a novelty effect, the interest shown by web surfers for Google Chrome appears to have worn off, at least for now…

More than six out of every ten visits in Europe use Internet Explorer, whereas little more than three use Mozilla Firefox…

The table below compares the average share of European visits taken by the various browsers from April to September 2008 (from the 3 to 30, to be precise, so as to take into account the share achieved by Google Chrome on those days when it was present in the marketplace).During this six month period, Internet Explorer again lost a few points:

The average share of visits in a European country taken by the leading browser was 60.2% from September 3 to 30, 2008 versus 64.5% in April 2008, down by 4.3 points,

Nevertheless, Google Chrome's arrival did not speed up this drop, with the rate of visits using Internet Explorer actually reviving a little between August and September (+0.8 points).

While Mozilla Firefox achieved a 31% average share of visits in Europe from September 3 to 30, 2008:

Its numbers were up a little every month, with the free browser even hitting 33% in August 2008,

However, from September 3 to 30, 2008, the arrival of Google Chrome hit Mozilla in particular, which lost ground (because these users are more open to novelties than those using IE? Nevertheless, trying it does not necessarily mean adopting it, so this trend will need to be watched during the coming months…), as will the leader's numbers too.

Opera, the third most widely used browser in Europe (with a 4.8% share from September 3 to 30, 2008) progressed by 1.2 points during the last six months, whereas Safari held steady with an average share of European visits of 2.4%.

… always on the forefront with the latest novelties

The graph below showing the average share of visits in Europe using Firefox 3 within its Mozilla family and IE7 within its Internet Explorer family lets us analyze the place taken up by the latest versions of the two main browsers within their overall share of visits.

The observed behavior is completely different:

Three months after its launch (on June 19, 2008), Firefox 3 already accounted for seven out of every ten Mozilla Firefox visits,

Whereas nearly two years after hitting the market (on October 19, 2006), IE7 still only accounted for six out of every ten Internet Explorer visits.

Although Google once again managed to get its name in the news in early September with the release of their Google Chrome browser, it has not made any massive inroads into the market so far.

Internet Explorer and Mozilla are still way ahead, with a leader that, except in September, continued to lose ground to its challenger who was somewhat pushed around during the last full month.Mark this space during the coming months in XiTi Monitor to follow this Browser Indicator.

Methodology:

The share of visits achieved by each browser corresponds to the total number of visits made using a given browser, compared with the total number of visits made using all browsers during the observed period.

During the last part of the study, the share of visits made using Firefox 3 corresponds to the visits made using this browser compared with all visits made using Mozilla family products and the share of visits made using IE7 corresponds to the visits made using this browser compared with all visits made using Internet Explorer family products.

In this study, the European indicator seeks to be representative of the countries that make up the panel. The average share of visits in Europe corresponds to the average of the indicators for the 32 countries studied. As a result, the behavior by a European country that generates few visits is equitably taken into account in the numbers recorded for its continent.