Mobile browsers also eat into Internet Explorer’s market share
Yesterday there were articles and blog posts comparing the next generation of the big three browsers, Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera. Among the insightful comments on one of those articles, there was the observation that Firefox’s market share of (up to) 15% (more on tech oriented sites), gave webmasters a reason to abandon a one-browser design strategy. In fact, one reason I think all browsers should be standards compliant is to make web designer’s jobs simpler. What’s interesting though is the further point that Mobile web browsing in some parts of the world exceed PC web browsing and there is wide open competition there for browser market share.
Web 2.0 explorer is where this is coming from and they point out that in China mobile web browsers outnumber pc web browsers over 3 to 1. Of course, you also consider any other “non-standard pc” browsers as a segment that will likely grow by leaps and bounds as well and you’ve quickly got a situation where the standard pc based browser dominance of Internet Explorer is perhaps quickly waning. In the U.S., of course, we are a bit behind that trend in heavy mobile web browsing, the expectation is that will catch up by 2008/2009 or so.
It is reassuring to keep this in perspective. There was a time when, looking at MSN’s strides in search, prominent tie in to Windows and coming release of Vista, I had troubled visions of a heavily locked in Microsoft version of the web. Things are turning out to be a bit more competitive though. All in all, good news.