Google’s Chrome narrowly became the world’s top internet browser for the first time on Sunday 18 March 2012, following a brief surge in use across India, Russia and Brazil, according to new data.
The findings, from web analytics firm StatCounter found Chrome topped the polls in India, Russia and Brazil, all of which contributed to it becoming the number one browser for that day on a global basis.
StatCounter reports that on March 18, Chrome was used for 32.7 percent of all browsing, while Explorer had 32.5 percent share.
When people returned to their offices on Monday, the IE share rose to 35 percent and Chrome’s share slipped to 30 percent.
“While it is only one day, this is a milestone,” commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter. He added that Chrome still faces a battle to unseat its main rivals including IE and Firefox in many regions. Chrome remains in 2nd or 3rd place in China, United States and Germany, for example.
“Whether Chrome can take the lead in the browser wars in the long term remains to be seen, however the trend towards Chrome usage at weekends is undeniable. At weekends, when people are free to choose what browser to use, many of them are selecting Chrome in preference to IE,” added Aodhan Cullen, commenting on the weekend surges in Chrome usage.
StatCounter data is based on over 15 billion page views per month (4 billion from the US) to the StatCounter network of more than three million websites.
Source: http://statcounter.com/