User Stats, August 2013: Chrome, IE 10 Gaining Ground

Each month, our Interactive Strategy team researches user trends for web browsers, operating systems, mobile web usage and search engines. Understanding how users are interacting with the Internet helps us determine development and technology strategies for our clients’ websites, mobile app development, search engine marketing and email marketing.

Here are some key statistics for usage in August 2013:

Web Browsers (US only)

Chrome continues to be the most popular web browser, showing a 7 point increase since April. During the same period, IE usage has fallen by nearly 11 points. Firefox is showing nearly no growth; Safari picked up 2.5 points in the last five months.

Chrome – 34.17% of all US users use this web browser
Internet Explorer – 31.85%
Firefox – 16.15%
Safari – 14.73

Internet Explorer Usage (US only)

IE 10 is gaining more widespread adoption among IE users, pulling users away from IE 9. IE 7 continues to wane in light of Microsoft announcing it will de-support this antiquated browser in the coming months. While IE 9 is continuing to losing users (-290% since April), IE 8 usage remains strong as it is the most current Internet Explorer version available for Windows XP users.

IE 10 – 14.68% of all US users use this web browser
IE 9 – 7.22%
IE 8 – 9.22%
IE 7 – 0.55%

Mobile Browsers (US only)

Safari, the default browser shipped with Apple’s iPhone, continues to dominate the US market. Strong Blackberry sales are correlating into increased usage of the Blackberry mobile web browser. Also to note is a 100% increase in Chrome mobile app usage since April.

Safari (iPhone) – 46.82% of all US users use this mobile web browser
Android – 31.85%
Chrome App – 6.45%
Blackberry – 4.29%

Of interest to note: worldwide, Android mobile browser usage is 28.62% vs. Safari (iPhone) usage of 21.32%.

Search Engines (US only)

Google remained the clear market leader in August, with nearly no movement in the past five months. Bing continues its slowth growth, pulling users away from the troubled Yahoo! platform.

Google – 78.38% of US searches are in this engine
Bing – 11.8%
Yahoo! – 7.93%

Search Engines (Worldwide)

Google’s worldwide dominance of worldwide search remains unchanged since April. Like the US market, Bing’s worldwide share of search is growing ever-so-slightly, picking up gains from Yahoo!’s user base.

Google – 89.93% of searches are in this engine
Bing – 3.89%
Yahoo! – 2.86%

Mobile Screen Resolution (US only)

iPhone screens – both the 4/4S and 5 sizes – continue to dominate the mobile resolution market, with the iPhone 4’s screen resolution dipping slightly and the iPhone 5 screen resolution increasing 3 points since March. Large “phablet-type” screens (think: Galaxy S4 and Note 2) remain consistent.

320×480 – 34.66% of all mobile web users view on this screen resolution
320×568 – 16.83%
720×1280 – 9.08%
480×800 – 5.02%
540×960 – 3.06%

Mobile Operating System (US only)

Still solidly in #1 and #2, iOS and Android continue to jockey for market share. The only significant change is BlackBerry’s mobile OS, which moved up nearly 300% since April.

iOS – 52.55% of mobile users use this mobile OS
Android – 39.05%
Blackberry OS – 5.11%
Windows – 1.48%
Symbian – 0.62%

Of interest to note: worldwide, Android OS usage is 39.52% vs. iOS usage of 23.44% and Symbian usage of 20.57%.

Operating System (US only)

Windows remains the market leader, with Windows 7 being the clear winner – although usage is declining in favor of Windows 8. MAC OSx, a favorite of college students, designers and the 18-30 year old market, gained 1.6 points since April.

Windows 7 – 46.54% of all web users are on this operating system
MAC OSX – 13.71%
Windows XP – 13.09%
Windows Vista – 5.21%
Windows 8 – 7.5%