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Safari browser growth outpaces Chrome in July

by Steven Sande Aug 1st 2011 at 1:30PM

Apple's Safari browser is gaining usage share dramatically, with its largest increase ever during the month of July. Net Applications provides metrics on a regular basis showing how various web browsers are faring in terms of usage, and the July figures showed Safari being used by 8.1 percent of all web users.

That's the largest single increase in a single month for Safari, with iOS devices making up more than a third of the usage for the browser. Safari's growth rate even beat Google's Chrome in July -- Safari's share jumped .6 percent for the month, while Chrome grew at only a .3 percent rate.

Safari has shown continued growth for 17 months straight, while Microsoft's Internet Explorer has been declining. IE still has the lion's share (no pun intended) of the browser market at 52.8%, but has shown solid declines for quite some time. Internet Explorer 9, the latest in the IE family of browsers, is showing continued growth as more businesses adopt Windows 7, but the overall browser share for IE is declining.

Firefox and Opera are also showing declining usage share, with Opera down to a measly 1.7% share -- about where it was in late 2007. Safari still has a long way to go to be on top of the heap, but the gains it is making show that Apple's strength in mobile devices and recent growth in Mac sales is also having a positive effect on Safari's usage.

For a detailed dive into the data, take a look at Net Applications' browser statistics.



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Apple's Safari browser is gaining usage share dramatically, with its largest increase ever during the month of July. Net Applications...
 

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7 Comments

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Rich Wills

A few months ago I switched from Safarie to Firefox and every day I have some reason to regret that decision.
It's been one long string of problems after another. And when I tried to get assistance I was either ignored or the responders did not understand the problems I have.

I guess I need to decide what I want to salvage and start migrating back to Safari. I wouldn't say it was never troublefree but compared to what I'm going through with Firefox, it was at a reasonable level of aggravation.

August 01 2011 at 9:28 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
docMD

Yeah this is clearly a post-Lion issue. Chrome is struggling to run on my system and Safari breezes along with its new full screen mode.

August 01 2011 at 8:47 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
CharlesK

This is such a silly story. Of course it gained usage in July. Lion was just released. The new full screen Safari was released. Wouldn't that be an explanation as to why the usage would be up with all these people using the new operating system? Isn't all of this obvious? And next month, when everyone stops using it again, Sande will write, wow, usage is down! Amazing!

August 01 2011 at 6:58 PM Report abuse -1 rate up rate down Reply
Alexandre Strube

Too bad apple screwed safari so much on lion... Safari only makes me wish to return to snow leopard...

August 01 2011 at 6:46 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Gerd

I don't trust Google anymore. Since their "Data Mining" scandal during their street photo sessions in european cities, I have stopped using their software. I'll definitely not use chrome anymore; that rude "Google Software update.app" can die in peace and leave my computer alone.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, therefore Viva Safari!

Amen.

August 01 2011 at 4:58 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Leonidus

Wow so misleading

August 01 2011 at 4:16 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Lucian Armasu

Wait, so you're using the iOS browser in there? That's very misleading of you. The Mobile Safari browser is NOT the same with the desktop one. That's like saying the Android browser is the same with Chrome, and therefore those numbers should be added too, or that Opera Mobile is the same with desktop Opera, or that Firefox Mobile is the same with Firefox.

Either add the numbers across platforms for all browsers, or don't do it all. Anything less is incredibly misleading.

August 01 2011 at 3:59 PM Report abuse +1 rate up rate down Reply
Carrespondent

iOS devices really shouldn't count here. While iPhones and iPads can use other browsers, mobile Safari is the unchangeable default.

August 01 2011 at 3:30 PM Report abuse +2 rate up rate down Reply
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