Chrome beats IE on any given Sunday

Over the past three weeks, Google Chrome has beaten out Internet Explorer as the No. 1 browser in the world — but only on Sundays. Monday through Saturday, IE has remained the browser with the highest worldwide market share, although its lead is slipping.

That bit of trivia, which comes via StatCounter, may not bode well for Microsoft, though the company claims StatCounter’s data is flawed. It suggests that users are increasingly turning to Chrome on their home machines, even if they’re still required to use IE on their work machines during the week. If we’ve learned anything from the consumerization-of-IT trend, it’s that users do hold some sway in getting their preferred technologies adopted at the office.

Chrome’s first moment of top-spot glory took place on Sunday, March 18: It held 32.71 percent of the browser market share that day, compared to IE’s 32.5 percent share, according to StatCounter. The following Sunday, Chrome controlled 33.02 percent of the browser market, whereas IE held 32.13 percent. Finally, Chrome secured 32.52 percent of worldwide browser market share on April 1 (no foolin’); IE’s share was 32.48.

In general, going by StatCounter’s numbers, Chrome has consistently seen its popularity spike on weekends over the past five weeks, while IE usage has dropped. Monday through Friday, Chrome has had an average worldwide market share of 30.16 percent; in that same period, IE’s weekday’s market share has averaged 35.55 percent. On the weekends, however, Chrome’s average market share has increased to 32.45 percent, whereas IE’s has dropped to 32.97 percent.

“The trend toward 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,” said StatCounter CEO Aodhan Cullen after Chrome’s first Sunday win.

Geographically speaking, Chrome has been enjoying momentum in regions around the globe, often at IE’s expense. Perhaps most notable, in Asia, Chrome has supplanted IE as the top browser since the start of 2012, up from 32.82 percent market share to 36.52 percent. IE’s share fell from 38.4 percent to 34.2 percent.

In North America, meanwhile, IE’s market share at the beginning of the year was 44.96 percent. At last week’s end, that figure was down to 41.26 percent. In that same time period, Chrome’s share rose from 20.97 percent to 23.68 percent; Firefox’s inched up from 20.61 percent to 20.95 percent.

In Europe, Internet Explorer started out the year with a market share of 31.01; at the end of last week, the number was 30.03. Chrome, meanwhile, gained ground, increasing from 26.39 to 28.51 percent. Firefox dipped from 31.62 percent to 30.62.

In Africa, IE started off 2012 with a market share of 31.21 percent — and ended the past week at 26.82 percent. Chrome, meanwhile, started of the year with market share of 26.93 percent and ended ahead of IE at 28.86 percent. Firefox, however, dominates among users in Africa with a current market share of 39.02.

In South America, Chrome’s share has risen from 43.58 percent to 46.9 since the start of January. IE’s has slipped from 32.23 percent to 29.77. Finally, in Oceania, IE’s share dropped from 37.78 percent to 36.99 percent. Chrome got a little boost, hopping from 22.64 percent to 23.91 percent — enough to put it in the No. 2 spot ahead of Firefox.

If Microsoft is worried about Chrome catching up, the company isn’t letting on — unless getting defensive is a sign of worry. When StatCounter revealed that Chrome had surpassed IE for the first time on March 18, Microsoft’s director of IE product marketing Roger Capriotti posted a blog entry criticizing StatCounter’s approach to ranking browsers. Capriotti’s argument was three-fold, as laid out by Computerworld’s Preston Gralla:

“First, [Capriotti] claims, the rankings don’t take into account that Chrome “pre-renders” pages, that is downloads pages assuming that users will click them next, even if users never view those pages. Secondly, he says, StatCounter doesn’t accurately geoweight “browser usage based on real-world Internet populations.” Third, he says, StatCounter counts page views rather than unique visitors, which he says is a more accurate way to count browser share.” 

Capriotti argued that Net Applications — which ranks IE at the world’s leading browser with a share of 53.83 percent — does a better job in that it discounts prerendered pages, properly performs geoweighting, and develops rankings based on unique visitors. By Net Applications figures, IE’s share has risen thus far this year from 52.96, whereas Chrome’s share has dipped from 18.94 to 18.57.

A representative for StatCounter countered Capriotti’s criticism in the Comments section of WinBeta’s coverage. “There’s no argument about geo-weighting when you can examine a single country. It simply doesn’t apply. Pre-rendering isn’t relevant to the trend either: Whether you move the Chrome line up or down a couple of percent, the trend remains.”

The StatCounter rep added, “Microsoft blog missed some important points about our service versus their preferred provider. For example, our sample pool is 3 million websites versus 40,000. We also separately report IE, Maxthon, and Lunascape. These are bundled together under IE by Net Apps (per their FAQ) which will obviously increase the IE figures.”

This story, “Chrome beats IE on any given Sunday,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog. For the latest developments in business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.