Market Share for Mobile and Desktop

Google+ as a Referral Source Continues Downward Trend

In November, Google+ social media referrals have dropped again.  Facebook now has over 1000 times the amount of referrals as Google+.

Blackberry Usage Share Drops on Outage and Conversions

The four day Blackberry outage coupled with a large number of Blackberry users switching to the iPhone 4S and Android, dropped Blackberry usage share in the mobile space from 3.3% to 2.5% in October.

Google+ as a Referral Source Still Dropping

Again this month, Google+ social media referrals have dropped significantly.  However, this trend may change since Google+ has been in a restricted field test and as of September 20th, Google opened the service to the public.  Facebook dominates this category, referring over 500 times the amount of Google+ referrals

Mac Share Gets Back-to-School Bump

Mac usage share generally rises in September.  This year, Mac share rose .42% to reach 6.45% of worldwide desktop usage and 13.7% in the United States.

Usage share of Safari on the desktop gained in correlation to the gain in Mac share, passing 5% for the first time.

Microsoft's Strategy With Internet Explorer 9

Skipping XP support, Microsoft has been pushing Internet Explorer 9 and Windows 7 as the best browsing experience on Windows 7 because of IE9's use of hardware acceleration and its integration with the Windows 7 user interface.  For the month of September, Internet Explorer 9 on Windows 7 hit 21% worldwide usage share.

As of the end of September, Internet Explorer 9 on Windows 7 reached 22.1% share worldwide and 31% in the United States. Share of worldwide browsing of Windows 7 also grew in September, passing 30% with 30.4% of worldwide browsing share

Mac Share Tops 6% for the First Time on the Desktop

For the first time in our tracking, Mac share has topped 6% on the desktop worldwide and is now at 13.42% in the United States.

Google+ Referrals Drop 32% in Second Month

After a strong first month, Google+ as a social media referral source has dropped 32% in its second month.  However, it has maintained its position as the seventh leading source of social media referrals.

Google+ Already Driving More Traffic Than Some Established Social Media Sites

We have a new measurement of market share.  We are now tracking referrals from social media sites.  This measures the percentage of all web visitors that get referred from the major social media sites.

For our first article, Google+ has launched, and even in its early form, it is driving more referrals than some established players.  In July, Google+ already topped Mashable and Delicious.

Are People Tuning Out the Facebook Like Button?

When Facebook launched their updated Like button in February, there was a huge, immediate jump in the amount of referral traffic generated from facebook.com (as shown in the report's graph).  However, since then the percentage has been dropping rapidly.

Browser Wars

As we've mentioned before, Microsoft skipped XP support for Internet Explorer 9 in order to compete more effectively on Windows 7.  In July on Windows 7, Internet Explorer 9 hit 18.5% share worldwide and 24.8% in the United States.  There are indications that this strategy is working.  Although Internet Explorer lost usage share on XP, on Windows 7, Microsoft increased global usage share, going from 54.6% in June to 54.8% in July.  And in the U.S., Internet Explorer share on Windows 7 grew 0.6% to 68.1%.

Microsoft has been pushing Internet Explorer 9 and Windows 7 as the best browsing experience on Windows 7 because of IE9's use of hardware acceleration and integration with the Windows 7 user interface.