Firefox's Market Share Hits 28% in Europe

Mitchell's Boy Toy writes "Firefox's market share has hit 28.0% in Europe as of December 2007, according to a French web metrics firm. That's a 20.7% increase from the beginning of 2007. 'Finland currently has the highest Firefox market share in Europe with 45.4 percent, followed by Slovenia with 44.6 percent and Poland with 42.4 percent.' IE share fell to just 66.1% in December, a 0.9 point loss in just a month. It should also be noted that Firefox's success could spell trouble for Opera's antitrust complaint: 'Firefox's continued success in Europe may undermine some of the arguments made by Norwegian browser maker Opera in an antitrust complaint filed against Microsoft in December of last year. Opera accused Microsoft of abusing its dominant position in the web browser market by tying Internet Explorer to Windows.'"

Comments

shouldn't undermine Opera's case

[yagu]

The summary suggests that Firefox's success could come at Opera's expense:

'Firefox's continued success in Europe may undermine some of the arguments made by Norwegian browser maker Opera in an antitrust complaint filed against Microsoft in December of last year. Opera accused Microsoft of abusing its dominant position in the web browser market by tying Internet Explorer to Windows.

Isn't the issue with Microsoft more correctly framed that Microsoft is using its monopoly and dominance of its OS to stifle competition in other markets, in this case, specifically browsers? I believe that if Firefox is actually close to 30% market share, Microsoft's position in browsers wouldn't (or would barely) meet the threshold for monopoly. It's their position in their OS. Opera's case shouldn't be at risk.

Re:shouldn't undermine Opera's case

[bunratty]

Opera's saying that it can't compete because users won't download browsers when they already have IE installed along with Windows, which has more than 90% of the desktop OS market share. But wait! 30% of users download Firefox, what's up with that? I guess users will go out of their way to download other browsers, after all. That undermines Opera's case. Oops!

Re:shouldn't undermine Opera's case

[yagu]

The key here is they can't compete... not that they can't get some business. Yes, people may have shown they go out of their way to download a different browser, but if the market is still severely skewed (IMO it is) because of a monopoly abuse, there is a case for a remedy.

Re:shouldn't undermine Opera's case

[hkmwbz]

Actually, MS does and can leverage its OS monopoly. It has done so for many years, to the detriment of other browsers. To this day, many sites still require IE. Opera's complaint does not fall apart since it can be shown that Microsoft has indeed been involved in anti-competitive practices, and the recent IE8 standards switch just proves this point.

Re:shouldn't undermine Opera's case

[Bogtha]

My point is simply that a browser can get 80% or more of the market without being bundled with an OS.

And b.emile's point was that this has only ever been demonstrated when the dominant operating system didn't have a browser bundled with it. The historical fact you point out is irrelevant because of this. You are excusing bundling because the desired outcome was possible before bundling was put into practice — you are begging the question.

There's no guarantee that IE usage will drop to a minority share just because it becomes unbundled from Windows.

It's not about making Internet Explorer drop to a minority share, it's about making browsers compete based on their value rather than whether the dominant desktop OS vendor makes them.

What market?

[geoffspear]

Firefox accounts for 28% of all web browsers being purchased? How can I get into the business of selling people a product they can get from free?

Re:What market?

[Joe the Lesser]

I dunno...I'd ask Radiohead.

Opera

[hilather]

Personally I think Operas anti-trust suit is a little ridiculous. Even though Microsoft may sell Windows with IE, how does Opera expect its consumers to download and install Opera without a web browser? Sure you could have someone put it on a disk for you, but its somewhat of a chicken and the egg problem, you need to start with something, and it might as well be a product Microsoft can include in its OS without having to go to a third party. I would be pretty upset if after installing Windows I couldn't browse the net.

Re:Opera

[TheRaven64]

Even though Microsoft may sell Windows with IE, how does Opera expect its consumers to download and install Opera without a web browser? By being OEMs. Every computer needs to come with a web browser, I'll agree, but if IE were not part of Windows then how many OEMs would bundle it? I'd imagine most would ship some cobranded version of Opera or Firefox and add it to their marketing ('comes with full-featured, secure, web browser with 90% more buzzwords than our leading competitor!').

Re:Incorrect summary

[jrumney]

Its a 20% increase. 28 - 23.2 / 23.2 is approximately 0.2 (20%).

Yeah, But That's 28% in *Metric*

[Doc Ruby]

In Imperial measures, that's how many Libraries of Congress?

Re:Yeah, But That's 28% in *Metric*

[corychristison]

That would be: 7/25 :-)

Re:"French web metrics firm," eh?

[Joe the Lesser]

My web browser gained 3.2% rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I like it!

Bundling is bundling. The real question is....

[Joce640k]

What would Firefox's share be if IE WASN'T bundled.

Microsft's bundling definitely killed off the competition. That the competition has come back is proof of how shoddy IE really is, and that it should have been completely unable to compete with Netscape in a fair market.

Re:IE preventing users to get other browsers?

[Xtifr]

That's right. There are no download tools that could possibly exist besides a browser. Before browsers were created, nobody ever downloaded anything. Furthermore, there's no way that an OEM could possibly bundle their choice of browser with a system. If it isn't created by MS, it can't possibly be installed on a Windows system.

NOTE: Here is the actual report

[SplatMan_DK]

I tried to submit this story to Slashdot some 6-7 hours ago, when it was still not mentioned. So I happen to have the link to the original report :-)

Relaunch of Mozilla Firefox's visit share in the European countries at the end of 2007

For more information about XiTi in general, visit their corp. homepage.

:-)

- Jesper

Re:Opera is selling a product?

[bunratty]

You're missing one critical but important point: Apple does not hold a monopoly on the mobile market with the iPhone as Microsoft does with Windows in the desktop market.

According to latest statistics from France..

[Colourspace]

There are 3.7 Billion Firefox users in Societe General alone!

Re:Opera is selling a product?

[ozmanjusri]

Except it won't really compete since it will be slower than all other mobile browsers. It will require an extremely high-end phone

WTF?

Where did that little bit of FUD come from? I'm using Firefox Mobile on my Nokia N800 right now, and it's very responsive. The Nokia only has a 330MHz OMAP processor, which is a slower than most Windows Mobile phones, let alone being "extremely high-end".