Enterprise open source Toolkit

Firefox 'passes 20 percent market share' in Europe

Tags:
Firefox

Published: 17 Jan 2006 13:30 GMT

Mozilla Firefox has achieved an market share of over 20 percent in Europe, according to the latest figures released by French Web metrics firm XiTi.

XiTi, which based its figures on a sample of 32.5 million Web site visits that took place on Sunday 8 January, said that Finland has the highest proportion of Firefox users, followed by Slovenia and Germany. It found that the open source browser is used by 38, 36 and 30 percent of users in these countries respectively.

The UK has one of the lowest proportions of Firefox users in Europe, accounting for only 11 percent of Web site visits. The figure of 20 percent across Europe was obtained by calculating an average from the figures obtained for each European country, according to XiTi.

But XiTi's figures should probably be taken with a pinch of salt, as Firefox usage tends to be highest over the weekend, according to Tristan Nitot, the president of Mozilla Europe.

"We should emphasise that these measures have been done on a Sunday, when Firefox' usage peaks. The Firefox browser is less used during the week, as enterprises are more conservative when it comes to using a newer browser," said Nitot, in a blog posting that commented on earlier figures released by the Web metrics company.

Other Web metrics companies produce more conservative estimates of Firefox' market share. In November, OneStat.com reported that Firefox had achieved a global market share of 11.5 percent, although it found that only 4.9 percent of people were using it in the UK.