PRESS RELEASE

The Battle of the Browsers: Can Firefox win the fight for market dominance against Internet Explorer?

ADTECH surveys European browser landscape

Frankfurt, Germany, August 23, 2007 – ADTECH, the global provider of ad server technology has today revealed the results of its latest research into browser trends across the European market. New research out today shows that Microsoft browsers continue to lead overall, with Internet Explorer (IE) 7 showing strong growth over the last six months. However, Microsoft should not be complacent as open source is still gaining momentum with Firefox 2 dominating the alternative browser market.

The research is good news for Microsoft which is riding high on the success of the launch of IE 7 in November 2006. While the older Microsoft browsers continue to lose ground their market share overall remains stable. More than three quarters (77.5 per cent) of all European users are surfing the internet with a version of IE. ADTECH’s research shows that IE 6 still tops the browser rankings with a market share of 45.7%, followed by IE 7 with 31.4% and Firefox 2 with 13.3 %. The latest version of Mozilla has not faired as well as trends indicated earlier this year, with the browser losing some momentum to the new Microsoft offering.

“Our research indicates that we will see a new top performer from the Microsoft fold,” claims Dirk Freytag, CEO of ADTECH. “We are expecting significant changes in the browser market over the next few months and predict that the majority of British and Finnish users will switch to the IE 7 within the year. Its success is unstoppable as we believe Microsoft browsers have established themselves as an integral part of business IT.“

In the UK, a third of all ad impressions are already generated through IE 7. Market shares of the IE 6 and IE 7 are very close to each other with only five per cent difference in usage indicated by the ADTECH statistics. The most devoted IE 6-fans are surfing the internet in Italy and Denmark. IE 7 is growing proportionally to the decrease in IE 6. Compared to the last report in February 2007, IE 7 was able to increase its presence by 21 per cent.

Trends noted in the last ADTECH browser research continue today with Firefox 2 retaining the loyalty of the Germans and the Finns. Both regions are front-runners in using alternative browsers: 30 per cent market share for Firefox 1 and 2 combined. Germany is the biggest market for Firefox 2 with statistics showing wide usage; every fourth German has started using the leading alternative browser. Firefox 2 is growing just like IE 7, mainly at the disadvantage of its predecessor, Firefox 1. Its market share increases by an average 1.5 per cent every six months.

For its regular browser analysis, ADTECH evaluates several billion banner enquiries across Europe to its own Adserver. The present data was collected between November 2006 and February 2007 from 4,000 Web Sites.

Browser distribution and click rates can vary according to website, day of the week and time of day. ADTECH wants to use its browser analyses to show trends, rather than determine the absolute figures.

Since 2004, ADTECH has been regularly evaluating browser distribution across Europe and publishing an analysis of key trends and statistics. By analysing over 20 billion banner enquiries across Europe to its ad servers, ADTECH can observe wider industry trends but not provide an overview of absolute figures. The results of this survey are based on measurements taken from 1 to 31 July 2007. Browser distribution and click rates can vary according to website, day of the week and time of day.

Browser-distribution by country for July 2007 (in %):

Browser	Europe-wide	Germany	Finland	UK	France	Italy	Denmark
IE 6.x	45,7	40,6	35,1	45,5	43,8	54,3	49,4
IE 7.x	31,4	25,2	30,1	36,3	33,5	28,2	36,0
Firefox 1	2,2	4,1	5,0	1,8	2,3	1,7	0,7
Firefox 2	13,3	25,6	24,7	11,1	14,5	11,0	6,9
Mozilla	3,9	0,7	0,4	0,2	2,8	1,0	0,2
AppleWebKit	1,6	0,9	1,5	2,8	1,8	2,2	1,6
Opera 8	0,9	1,7	2,5	0,7	0,5	0,4	0,6
IE 5	0,4	0,8	0,3	0,4	0,5	0,8	0,1

 

Graphical view – click here...
The European browser allocation percentage for July 2007
Browser-distribution by country for July 2007

Developments in browser distribution in Europe since November 2004
(in %):

Browser	Nov 04	March 05	Sept 05	April 06	Nov 06	Febr 07	May 07	July 07
IE 6	80,45	80,25	79,72	80,79	72,24	50,86	47,10	45,70
IE 7					4,90	25,87	29,31	31,40
Firefox 1 + 2	4,56	8,96	12,41	12,38	13,41	14,34	14,96	15,50
Mozilla	2,38	1,14	1,06	0,82	5,18	5,11	4,87	3,90
AppleWebKit			1,40	1,67	1,56	1,63	1,81	1,60
IE 5.x	10,11	6,57	3,59	2,57	0,85	0,61	0,47	0,40

Graphical view – click here...
Browser distribution trends since November 2004

ADTECH Press Contact UK
Nikki Alvey, The PR Network
Phone: +44 (0) 7973 354 706


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