Google Chrome maintains its dominance in the U.S. desktop browser market share battle between several companies including Microsoft (Edge and Internet Explorer), Apple (Safari), Mozilla (Firefox) and others according to one report. In August of 2016, the number of U.S. desktops using Chrome to browse the internet was 54.9%, while IE had 23.27%, Safari 8.85%, Firefox 5.87%, Edge 6.48% and others 0.62%.

U.S. Desktop Browser Marketshare Trend

In October of 2015, Microsoft's IE was still the supreme king in the U.S. desktop browser market share battle but in January 2016 when Microsoft announced it would discontinue its technical support to the Internet Explorer, its market share began to unsurprisingly fall as shown in the graph below, courtesy of NetMarketShare. Based on the same graph, the most logical explanation is that people started switching over to Chrome which explains its sudden increase in market share around the same time IE started to decline. In January 2016, IE had 44.38% of the total U.S. market share while Chrome sat at a distant second with 28.72% but by May 2016, IE's share shrunk to 29.17% while Chrome jumped to 45.55%.

Starting in February 2016, Chrome's market share started to climb quickly as it's popularity among iOS users started to grow aggressively. In May 2016, Chrome sat at its peak with 61.2% of the market share while Safari trailed with 35.46%. By August 2016, however, things were looking more even between the two with Chrome leading with 49.92% and Safari just three points behind with 46.68%.

Conclusion

During the past 12 months, Microsoft may have envisioned users flocking to its Edge option. Instead, many users decided to turn to other browsers, Chrome chief among them.

The Google browser has also benefited from a dwindling market share for the likes of Mozilla Firefox (1.1 percent) and a stagnant period at Apple Safari and Opera Software.

Even at it most popular, Internet Explorer was not considered one of the most advanced browsers on the market. Instead, it greatly benefited from being the pre-installed browser on millions of PCs, particularly those used in the workplace.

Microsoft Trying to stem Tide

Microsoft appeared to have finally addressed the issue with the introduction of Edge as part of the new Windows 10 operating system.