Internet Explorer usage share down again in May

By Tom Warren, on 1st Jun 11 1:30 pm with 13 Comments

Microsoft’s overall Internet Explorer usage-share dipped again in May 2011 following a small increase in February and decrease in March and April.

Worldwide usage-share trackers Net Applications issued their monthly browser share report on Wednesday which indicates that Internet Explorer usage-share has taken another slight hit in May 2011. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer now controls 54.27% of the market compared to 59.75% a year ago and 67% in January 2009. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer market share has bled for months continuously as the company struggles to convince users to pick Internet Explorer for their browsing needs.

  • August 2010 – 60.48%
  • September 2010 – 59.62%
  • October 2010 – 59.18%
  • November 2010 – 58.44%
  • December 2010 – 57.08%
  • January 2011 – 56.00%
  • February 2011 – 56.77%
  • March 2011 – 55.92%
  • April 2011 – 55.11%
  • May 2011 – 54.27%

Microsoft acknowledged the dip in in usage share by highlighting the company’s efforts to force users off of Internet Explorer 6 and 7. “We continue to see positive momentum in people upgrading to a modern browser with the share of IE6 and IE7 worldwide dropping almost another point in May,” said Microsoft’s Roger Capriotti. “Our website ie6countdown.com continues to get great traffic with more than 1.5 million unique visitors and 2.8 million page views since its launch in March.”

Worldwide Internet Explorer 9 usage share on Windows 7 now averages at 12.2% for the month of May, a 60% increase from April. Microsoft recently made Internet Explorer 9 available in 93 languages, more than any other rival browser.

  • GP007

    You need to break this down per version, as far as I know IE9 is going up and to some extent so is IE8 with new Windows 7 sales etc.   So what’s going down?  If it’s IE6 and 7 then I don’t think MS cares as much.  Also any impact it’s had by not supporting XP with IE9 should be short lived as all those old XP installs move over to Win7 or later on Win8.

  • GP007

    You need to break this down per version, as far as I know IE9 is going up and to some extent so is IE8 with new Windows 7 sales etc.   So what’s going down?  If it’s IE6 and 7 then I don’t think MS cares as much.  Also any impact it’s had by not supporting XP with IE9 should be short lived as all those old XP installs move over to Win7 or later on Win8.

  • Test1ngi23

    As a web developer, all I can say to good riddance!

  • Anonymous

    There just isn’t much demand for html5 yet so people are looking for browsers with addons, customizations, ad block and such..  IE really needs to make it easy to extend the browser and do addons from within the browser like firefox and chrome do.

    • http://twitter.com/gpmoore Greg Moore

      I agree.  IE really needs to bite the bullet and look into extensions.  Firefox is the class leader and as a result it’s the browser I use.  If another browser did extensions better, then I’d use that – and this is coming from someone who only uses a few extensions in the first place.

    • phil jay

      for extensions I really go for chrome.. I don’t like firefox and its extensions, personal feeling, too bloated.
      extensions would be nice for ie9, but in a way they should be absolutely secure, unobstrubtive and not taking too much memory load(especially when not in use).

  • IEByeBye

    I think it’s pretty clear that *overall* usage is going down because more and more people are using either Chrome or Firefox.
    It has nothing to do with version numbers.

    • GP007

      Version numbers are important in this regard becase IE9 is limited to Vista/7 while the other browsers also support XP still.   If the people who are dropping IE are the XP users and we’re talking about IE6/7 it doesn’t much effect MS since they don’t support that OS anymore.  You see this in the Win7 numbers which show IE9 gaining on that OS which is the one MS cares most about.  Also on the other side FF has been on a slow decline for quite some time, at 21% now, it used to be over 25% iirc, hell maybe closer to 30%.

    • GP007

      Version numbers are important in this regard becase IE9 is limited to Vista/7 while the other browsers also support XP still.   If the people who are dropping IE are the XP users and we’re talking about IE6/7 it doesn’t much effect MS since they don’t support that OS anymore.  You see this in the Win7 numbers which show IE9 gaining on that OS which is the one MS cares most about.  Also on the other side FF has been on a slow decline for quite some time, at 21% now, it used to be over 25% iirc, hell maybe closer to 30%.

    • Jobs

      Let not forget their is a few of those iPhones and iPad out there taking a bite out of Internet Explorer usage 

  • IEByeBye

    I think it’s pretty clear that *overall* usage is going down because more and more people are using either Chrome or Firefox.
    It has nothing to do with version numbers.

  • http://www.softworld.com/windows/internet/browsers/internet-explorer/ Internet Explorer

    In my opinion this is normal as the competition has increased considerably. Basically now there are three main competitors such as Mozilla, Opera and Google Chrome. 

    • zzz

      Yes, another normal example of Ballmer failed leadership