Dive Brief:
- Microsoft's browsers continued to lose users in March as people increasingly adopt Chrome as their primary internet browser, according to data from Net Applications, an analytics company.
- Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Edge lost a combined 1.4 percentage points of desktop and notebook user share in March, Net Applications said.
- It was the fourth consecutive monthly decline of more than a point for Microsoft, but Explorer and Edge combined still account for more than 40% of browsers in use.
Dive Insight:
In January, Microsoft announced it was ending support for older versions of Internet Explorer and encouraged users to upgrade to Internet Explorer 11 or Microsoft Edge. Asking users to change browsers may have backfired, experts speculate, as it forced people to rethink their browser choice. And apparently, users are moving to adopt Chrome.
Explorer and Edge accounted for 43.4% of all browsers used in March. But during March 2015, Microsoft's browsers represented more than 56% of those in use.
Should trends continue on their current trajectory, use of Microsoft's browsers will drop behind Google Chrome in May, if not sooner, ComputerWorld predicted. Chrome is rapidly becoming the world's most-used browser. In one year, Chrome's user share has increased from around 25% to just over 39%.
Meanwhile, use of Firefox declined in March, while Apple's Safari and Opera Software's Opera had stagnant growth.
