Google Chrome is absolutely dominating the web browser market, at least according to social analytics firm Shareaholic, which yesterday released usage statistics for all browsers worldwide.
The data, which covers the 2013 calendar year up until now, reveals Chrome (34.68%) is used more than Firefox (16.60%), Opera (2.02%) and Internet Explorer (15.62%) combined. Adding the stock Android browser (7.36%) into the mix and Google commands over 42% of all browser usage, second to Apple with just 21% after combining Safari (16.15%) and Safari in-app browser (4.86%) use.
It's also worth noting that the top four browsers - Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer (in that order) - are used by over 80% of the market. This might not be the case in the future though, with Internet Explorer and Firefox on the decline, while Chrome and the stock Android browser continue to climb.
As The Next Web notes, Shareaholic's data differs to that collected by popular statistics firm Net Applications in a number of ways, which can explain why Net Applications consistently ranks Internet Explorer as the most used browser.
Shareaholic tracked 250 million users over 200,000 websites, collecting and combining pageview data for both mobile and desktop browsers. Net Applications simply tracks desktop unique users, rather than pageviews, which results in more market share for more widespread, but less frequently used browsers such as IE.