Hardware 2.0

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Mozilla: "Firefox's current overall market share is 20%"

By Adrian Kingsley-Hughes | November 6, 2008, 9:09am PST

Every time I post NetApplications data on this blog several of you go to great lengths to point out to me that it’s a flawed metric, especially when it comes to the market share for the browser Firefox. For one reason or another, NetApplications is wrong/bias/too US-centric/controlled by Microsoft* (delete as appropriate).

With this in mind I approached Mozilla PR and asked then a straight question:

Me: Quick question - what does Mozilla consider the overall Firefox market share to be?

Within a few minutes I got back a straight answer:

Mozilla PR: Firefox’s current overall market share is 20%.

Hmmm, I thought, that’s damn close to the market share that NetApplications posted for Firefox. In fact, just the other day NetApplications published a featured report that said that Firefox had hit 20% for two months in October.

So I asked another question:

Me: What do you folks base that on?

To which I got the prompt reply:

Mozilla PR: We use Net Applications to come help come up with these numbers.

So, the takeaway there is that if the folks at Mozilla are happy to use (and quote) NetApplications data for Firefox, then I’m betting that the overall market share isn’t going to be much above that, because if Mozilla had some reliable data showing Firefox usage at 30%, 40% or even 50%, the PR folks would be pointing me to this rather than NetApplications.

So, is Mozilla’s PR team underestimating the browser’s market share by choosing to believe NetApplications?

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Topics

Mozilla Firefox, Market Share, Mozilla Corp., Web Browsers, Internet, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, NetApplications, Public Relations, Marketing, Corporate Communications

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is an internationally published technology author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology.

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Yup

Gnutella Updated - 19th Dec 2008

That's why in their OS share metrics you see a high
Mac share. Unlike browsers, worldwide OS market share
can be verified by NPD data because you can actually
track sales and in that metric it's consistently shows
4%. Furthermore NPD data about the US market shows a
picture more consistent with NetApps global OS
metrics which maybe indicative.

Either way, AKH can't be chided if Mozilla is
comfortable with that metric.

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The silence is deafening

Takalok 6th Nov 2008

...

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Mozilla has nothing to gain by arguing details here. Firefox is about 20%,

DonnieBoy 6th Nov 2008

no need to say anything more . . . .

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They could go with NetApplications' numbers as

GuidingLight 6th Nov 2008

their own internal numbers could show a smaller marketshare, so go with the numbers that overvalue your market share.

So you are correct, Mozilla has nothing to gain by arguing details here, in fact they may have everything to lose by doing so.

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Of course they have a lot to lose ...

MisterMiester Updated - 6th Nov 2008

So you are correct, Mozilla has nothing to gain by arguing details here, in fact they may have everything to lose by doing so.

You could make the argument that Mozilla knowingly would not contradict the 20% figure since Net Applications "market share" sampling is always North American centric. Once you weight the sample with a market were Firefox is not so strong then the average suffers. A good example is China in which Firefox has a 3% market share:

Firefox To Launch Open Source Browser To Seize Chinese Market

Guo Yuanzheng, general manager of Mozilla Online Ltd, a China-based subsidiary of the Mozilla Corporation that is in charge of promoting Firefox in China, has told the local media that Firefox will soon start a new campaign to seize more market share in China.

http://www.chinatechnews.com/2008/03/31/6560-firefox-to-launch-open-source-browser-to-seize-chinese-market/

China has more internet users that the United States, so it's very reasonable to believe that Net Applications data does not include this market in the same proportion as with other markets, so Mozilla is staying tight-lipped about the numbers.

This is th same argument I use when Net Applications brings out these "market share" numbers every month for Linux. Because they exclude markets where Linux has a higher percentage of use it skews the numbers. Statistics are only as good as the data that is being sampled. happy

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But does it reflect preferences?

RudyTome2 6th Nov 2008

While 20% may reflect actual use it may not accurately reflect preferences.

For example, I am a committed Firefox user and avoid IE, in whatever flavor, when I can. However, at work only IE7 is allowed. The ratio of my time on the web at work to my time on the web at home is easily 3:1. So, while my usage reflects about 30% for Firefox my preference is 100% Firefox.

Perhaps there are those who have the reverse situation but I would be surprised if it significantly countered those of us with other browsers preferences who are required to use IE.

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Re: But does it reflect preferences?

aros 8th Nov 2008

Good question!

My preference is clear and in an ideal world my usage would probably be almost 100% Firefox.

However, at client sites I regularly have no choice but to use IE. The same holds at our local school, where I do volunteer work.

On my home computers, I grudgingly use IE besides Firefox and Thunderbird: MS Windows & MS Office support & updates work best in IE, there is still the odd site that only works properly in IE, sometimes I will want to test sites in IE, and sometimes I need to use both browsers at the same time (e.g. to use two separate logins for the same site in parallel).

Wherever I do get the chance, however, I will install (or recommend people to install) Firefox!

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The problem is that because the data ...

MisterMiester Updated - 6th Nov 2008

... is North American centric it tends to drag down the average. In Europe it's about 30% according to Mozilla:

https://developer.mozilla.org/devnews/index.php/2008/11/04/aboutmozilla-firefox-at-20-market-share-add-ons-for-fennec-private-browsing-for-firefox-31-and-more/#20

Since NetApplications for some reason doesn't like to include the rest of the world in their "market share" I would argue that the world market share is still not accurate since there are so many anomalies in aggregating the data.

In reality the true "world market share" is most likely between the two figures of 20% and 30% depending on how the rest of the world is weighted in the sample population.

Edit:

Market share for Firefox in China is about 3% according to this report:

http://www.chinatechnews.com/2008/03/31/6560-firefox-to-launch-open-source-browser-to-seize-chinese-market/

It may have increased a little since this report was back in March. Now since the share is 3%, maybe 5% since March, and China does have a very high percentage of internet users, more than the United States, is the 20% market share figure from NetApplications weighted properly to include China? wink

"There are three types of lies - lies, damn lies, and statistics." - Benjamin Disraeli

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Considerings Chinese add-ons

Norcross 6th Nov 2008

I'm not surprised that it's not mainstream there. I've seen numerous add-ons in FF3 that circumvent the Chinese firewalls (esp. during the Bejing Games), so they can't be happy about that.

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Yup

Gnutella Updated - 19th Dec 2008

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RE: Mozilla: You've got to start...

bryantrv 6th Nov 2008

I would guess that while the numbers are certainly a bit flawed- especially due to factors such as the user-agent switcher extension (and Opera's built in user agent functionality), you've got to start somewhere, and I know of no better way to measure such things.
I would also guess that the errors are far less than they used to be. For a long time, many websites would refuse to load with any browser other than IE (even though they worked just fine on other browsers), but web development has gotten better, and web developers have figured out that they cannot alienate even 10% of their audience (and IE cannot do anything other browsers cannot do, other than get deeper in to the Windows OS).

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Yes, the user-agent changer did skew the results

mystic100 7th Nov 2008

I had to use the user-agent changer built into PrefBar quite a bit in the earlier days of Firefox (version 1 & lower). That is when many websites were written for IE only. I found many of those sites locked out Firefox (and other browsers), not because they couldn't render the html correctly, but because of the brain-dead browser sniffer that was set up to exclude everything but IE. Things changed when Firefox approached 10% market share and companies and web designers took notice.

Today, I rarely have to switch user-agents since the sites I use regularly, including my bank, all work great with Firefox. So I think that user-agent spoofing did skew the numbers in the earlier days of Firefox but not much anymore. I would guess that Firefox's market share is probably closer to 25% worldwide since European usage is higher - between 30-40% and some Asia countries (besides China) also have larger user bases.

The main point here is regardless of the exact Firefox market share, Mozilla has done all internet users a great service by bringing competition back to the browser market as well as moved the web closer to standardization. If Firefox had not been as successful, IE would probably still be at version 6 and web development might have stagnated. Instead, IE7 has been out for several years, IE8 is on the way, Firefox 3.1 will be out soon, Safari, Chrome, and Opera are still releasing new versions. Regardless of which browser people use, real competition improves everyone's web experience.