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Firefox' growth starts to slip

Jo Best silicon.com

Published: 01 Mar 2005 10:25 GMT

Firefox's progress against Internet Explorer is beginning to slow, new research has found.

Web analytics company WebSideStory has found that in the five weeks leading up to 18 February, Firefox's market share grew by 15 percent, compared with the six weeks before, when the market share increased by 22 percent.

The 15 percent gain is modest in comparison to the open source browser's market share boom following the release of Firefox 1.0 in November, when the browser saw its market share leap by 34 percent.

WebSideStory CEO Jeff Lunsford said in a research note that the slump was predictable but didn't necessarily mean Firefox won't meet its self-imposed target of 10 percent market share by the end of the year.

"This is probably to be expected as we move beyond the early adopter segment. Back in December 2004, it seemed Firefox was a lock to reach 10 percent by mid-2005, ahead of the reported year end goal of the Mozilla Foundation. Given the latest growth rates, the year-end target still appears attainable, but a mid-year achievement is unlikely unless we see increased marketing activity from the Mozilla Foundation," he said.

Firefox's market share currently stands at 5.7 percent of all browser usage, according to WebSideStory, up from around three percent in November 2004.