We are in the era of the modern browser - market share analysis January 2016
We're on the cusp of a new age - the era of the "modern browser".
As older IE versions are effectively mothballed by Microsoft (bar a few holdouts in the UK public sector and elsewhere, because they weren't able to get their act together with 2 years' notice), I thought we'd take one final snapshot of our browser market share analysis, based on the traffic from a couple of sites: one that targets global Devs, CIOs & CTOs, and another that targets English ABC1s.
Global Developers, CIOs and CTOs
| Browser | % Share |
|---|---|
| Chrome | 69.09% |
| Firefox | 12.51% |
| Internet Explorer | 7.86% |
| Safari | 5.60% |
| Edge | 3.27% |
| Opera | 0.79% |
| Opera Mini | 0.18% |
| Safari (in-app) | 0.18% |
| Android Browser | 0.10% |
| UC Browser | 0.09% |
Developers still heavily favour Chrome - almost 70% of you! Firefox is in at number two with 12%, and IE is hanging on in there with a shade under 8%. Microsoft's 10% share amongst developers is, however, maintained, by the 3% usage of Edge we now see.
Looking at IE Versions
| Version | % Share |
|---|---|
| 11 | 87.23% |
| 9 | 6.92% |
| 10 | 4.31% |
| 8 | 1.22% |
| 7 | 0.24% |
| 6 | 0.08% |
Basically, everyone is on IE11. There are a few devs being punished with Vista and XP (And still an IE6 holdout there somewhere, the poor lost soul.)
English ABC1s
| Browser | % Share |
|---|---|
| Safari | 48.52% |
| Chrome | 32.66% |
| Internet Explorer | 9.82% |
| Firefox | 5.19% |
| Safari (in-app) | 1.23% |
| Edge | 0.91% |
| Android Browser | 0.76% |
| Amazon Silk | 0.51% |
| Opera | 0.17% |
IE Versions
| Version | % Share |
|---|---|
| 11 | 70.20% |
| 9 | 15.12% |
| 10 | 9.16% |
| 8 | 4.65% |
| 7 | 0.87% |
Firefox's decline continues, as does IE's. Edge has just appeared. Safari on IOS continues to dominate with nearly 50% of all browser visits - though this has peaked over the year.
IE's share is now utterly dominated by IE11. A few Vista diehards are on IE 9, and a tiny rump of XP diehards are on IE7 and 8. The number of visits is so low as to be ignorable (fewer than 3% of all visits)
In summary - we really are in the age of the modern browser; not just by dictat, but by consumer behaviour. It's time to forge ahead, and stop specifying IE7/8/9/10 fallbacks in our site designs.
