Firefox Market Share Drops Again, Chrome Set to Overtake

Once more, Firefox is at the losing end of browser market share ranks.

In September, Mozilla's browser dropped from 27.49 percent to 26.79 percent share and is now dangerously close to being surpassed by Chrome. According to data provided by StatCounter, IE also dropped and landed at 41.66 percent, which is a new low in StatCounter's charts and lowest level in 13 years, according to our own records. Chrome continues its pace and added almost half a point to 23.61 percent.

Far more interesting than the September market share data are the numbers that reflect the market shares on individual days, which reveals short-term trends. If we believe StatCounter's data, then both Firefox and IE are coming out of a bloody weekend, during which IE fell to as low as 38.39 percent, while Firefox held stable at 26.87 percent. However Chrome hit a record of 25.91 percent and was within less than 1 point of Firefox. If the current trend continues, then we will see Chrome exceeding Firefox market share on a weekend day within the next two weeks.

Firefox market share has been impacted by Mozilla's struggles to push out its rapid release versions fast enough and claim market share in the process - in a similar way Google does with Chrome. Meanwhile, Microsoft claims that IE9 is increasing its lead over its rivals on Windows 7 with more than 22 percent share (Microsoft cites Net Applications data). However, IE9 has remained below expectations overall. According to StatCounter, IE9 had about 10 percent market share over the weekend and an average of 9.59 percent in September.

Mozilla is clearly under pressure to find a way to fend off Google. Given the latest, numbers, however, the battle may already be lost - at least according to StatCounter.