Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) turned things around last month, boosting its usage share by a record amount, a Web analytics firm said today.
By the end of June, IE accounted for 60.3% of all browsers used globally, according to data released by Net Applications. The increase of 0.6 of a percentage point was a record in Net Applications' data, exceeding the 0.3 of a percentage-point jump in May 2009 by a wide margin.
Vince Vizzaccaro, a Net Applications executive vice president, credited Microsoft 's "Confidence" marketing campaign, which rolled out television and Web ads in early June to tout the security enhancements in IE8, for at least some of IE's gains.
"It's a fairly large campaign, something I don't remember Microsoft really doing before," Vizzaccaro said. "And I think it's a good campaign."
He also speculated that IE's increase was tied to the continued upswing in Windows PC sales, and the fact that IE8 is included with Windows 7 , the operating system packaged on virtually every new machine. "PC sales are at a record-setting pace," said Vizzaccaro, "and with Windows regaining some market share, it makes sense that IE does as well." Most people simply "go with the flow," he added, running the browser that comes on their machines.
Not surprisingly, Microsoft took the opportunity to trumpet the turnaround, particularly the increases in share by IE8, its newest browser. "Internet Explorer 8 share continues to be the fastest growing browser with a 0.66 [percentage point] increase in share, more than three times the growth of Google Chrome," said Ryan Gavin, a senior director on the IE team, in an entry on the browser's official blog .
According to Net Applications, IE 8's usage share totaled 48.7% during June when the browser's compatibility mode -- a feature that lets it properly render pages designed for older editions -- is taken into account.
Microsoft's achievement shouldn't come as a shock, since IE's intermittent gains have typically come in the summer. Last year, IE gained 0.55 of a percentage point in May and June, while in 2008 it posted a 0.15 of a percentage-point increase in July. Net Applications' Vizzaccaro had no quick explanation for IE's summer jumps.
Rival browsers, meanwhile, either lost ground to IE or gained at rates slower than historical averages.
Mozilla's Firefox slipped to 23.8%, a decrease of 0.5 of a percentage point, its largest single-month loss since May 2009, while the Norwegian browser Opera dropped to 2.3%, a decline of 0.2 of a percentage point.
Google's Chrome, which has surged of late, ended June with a usage share of 7.2%, an increase of 0.2 of a percentage point, half the average gain during the previous 12 months. Apple 's Safari, whose share is tightly tied to the Macintosh, climbed almost 0.1 of percentage point to 4.9%.