Internet Explorer Gains Market Share While Chrome Slips

Internet Explorer has been losing ground as of late, but it's important to remember the sheer amount of Windows PCs out there with the browser pre-installed. While Chrome and Firefox aim to try and eventually dethrone Microsoft's browser, Internet Explorer has seen an increase in usage for the first time since September 2011.

Internet Explorer gained a percentage point in March, bringing its total share to 53.8% of the market, according to Net Applications. Meanwhile, Chrome lost some ground, down 0.3% to finish the month with a total share of 18.6%. Mozilla's Firefox also dropped to 20.6%, the lowest number recorded for three years. As for Safari and Opera, they sit at 5.1% and 1.6% respectively.

The end of March brings the third consecutive month that Chrome has lost market share. Chrome has dropped more than half a percent during the first quarter of 2012. Net Applications believes Chrome's decline in previous months was due to the PageRank search demotion of the browser by Google.

So why the change in numbers? It could be due to the fact that Net Applications has changed the method to calculate browser usage. Data from different countries (the United States and China, for example) varies dramatically. As a result, the company weighs certain numbers more heavily to account for missing data. Or maybe people just really, really like Internet Explorer 9. Stranger things have happened.

[via TG Daily]