14 DAY TRIAL // Windows Vista’s usage share will drop under 9% this month, while Windows XP’s is on the verge of dipping under 50%, with Windows 7 uptake accelerating. Internet Explorer 9’s adoption rate also stands to benefit from Windows 7’s excellent run as it’s approaching the second year anniversary since general availability. “Internet Explorer 9 continues its growth this month as more and more people are switching to the latest version of IE. As of the end of September, IE9 now holds 31% share on Windows 7 in the US. Worldwide, IE9 is 22% of all usage share on Windows 7,” reveals Roger Capriotti, director, Internet Explorer Marketing.
There has to be little doubt in the minds of the Softies working in Dean Hachamovitch’s IE team, that betting on Windows 7 was the right choice, as this is the only platform that really matters.
It might be hard to share this perspective, but with Vista largely irrelevant, there’s only one way for XP to go, down. As Windows 7 will take the usage crown away from XP in the coming months, Microsoft’s choice to favor it in the detriment of the decade old OS in terms of IE9 support, will start to make a lot more sense.
The statistics from Net Applications show clearly that IE9 is the browser of choice on Windows 7, and as more and more users will upgrade from IE8, which continues to be the top Internet Explorer release, usage-wise.
What’s interesting is that, even considering Windows XP for browser usage share statistics, IE9 is catching up with rivals Chrome and Firefox, although at first there was quite a gap between the two open source browsers and the latest release of IE.
At the end of September 2011, IE8 accounted for a usage share of 29.91%, Firefox 6 for 11.41%, Chrome 13 for 9.84% and IE9 for 8.72%. In just a few more months IE9’s usage share will also surpass that of the most recent releases of Chrome and Firefox not only on Windows 7, but across all platforms, even though it’s only supported on Vista and its successor.
“Another great trend is the sharp drop of IE6 as more people move towards modern browsers. IE6 has now dropped to 9% usage share worldwide in September (and if you remove China’s figures, IE6 only represents 3.5% usage share worldwide). Poland also crossed an important threshold this month – their IE6 usage share dropped to less than one percent,” Capriotti added.
“It’s super interesting to us to look at sites like the IE6 Countdown and notice that over 50% of the visitors in September were using IE6, and 72% of those visitors were from outside the US. It’s clear that partners around the world are spreading the word about the Countdown and are sharing ways to get their users off of IE6.”
Internet Explorer 10 (IE10) Platform Preview 2 (PP2) Build 10.0.1008.16421 is available for download here.
Windows Internet Explorer 9 RTW for Windows 7 and Windows 7 SP1 is available for download here.
Firefox 7 for Windows is available for download here.
Google Chrome for Windows is available for download here.
Opera 12.00 Codenamed Wahoo Pre-Alpha and Opera 11.50 for Windows are available for download here.