Microsoft’s Internet Explorer losing Indian market share: study

The use of Microsoft's Internet Explorer internet browser is on a steady decline in India, according to a study by the Irish metrics firm StatCounter.

The IE, as it is widely called, has lost almost 20 per cent market of its Indian market share over the past two years, even as Google's Chrome and Mozilla's Firefox grab bigger chunks of the market.

IE's decline in Europe was even more pronounced as it lost three times more share this month than usual in some European countries since the company was forced to mandate a ballot screen by EU in its Windows 7 operating system. The ballot screen offers users a choice between Mozilla's Firefox, Google's Chrome, Apple's Safari, Opera and others, by displaying icons of rival browsers.

The percentage of PCs running IE in India has fallen from around 70 per cent in 2008 to about 51 per cent according to the report. The fall came even in the absence of any regulatory measures like those mandated by European Union on Microsoft, this year.

Worldwide IE has started slipping in market share with rivals Chrome and Firefox making impressive gains from this month, after the EU regulation. Worldwide IE enjoys a global market share of about 55 per cent followed by Firefox at 31 per cent, Chrome at 7 per cent and Safari at about 4 per cent currently.

In developed markets like Germany, Firefox has already displaced IE from its leadership while in France IE has lost close to 6 per cent to Firefox and Google's Chrome since January this year.