BOSTON, USA: Mozilla's Firefox 4 reached 14.2 percent of the worldwide market in May, overtaking for the first time its previous 3.6 version which is on 12.3 percent, according to StatCounter, the free website analytics company.
"Firefox 4 has performed well since launch and is on an upward trajectory," commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter.
"This is particularly impressive as a Firefox upgrade has to be initiated or authorized by the user, unlike Chrome, for example, which undergoes automatic updates," added Cullen.
When all versions are combined IE still leads the pack globally with 43.9 percent followed by Firefox with 29.3 percent. The forward momentum, however, is with Chrome which has increased from 8.6 percent a year ago to 19.4 percent in May 2011.
In the USA Firefox 4 is on 12.6 percent compared to 10.7 percent for Firefox 3.6 while IE 9 is on 5.9 percent. Aodhan Cullen added that IE 9 is restricted by the fact that it only runs on Windows 7 and Vista and not on XP, the worldwide market leader. When all browser versions are taken into account IE leads the US market with 47 percent followed by Firefox on 25 percent and Chrome on 15 percent.
StatCounter Global Stats are based on aggregate data collected on a sample exceeding 15 billion page views per month (4 billion from the US) from the StatCounter network of more than three million websites.