Google Chrome increases dominance of global web browser market

Safari and Microsoft Edge trail a long way behind Chrome

Google Chrome continues to dominate the browser market with a commanding market share pinned at 72%, according to the latest figures from StatCounter.

Apple Safari trails a long way behind with 14%, while Microsoft Edge – which never misses an opportunity to demand that Windows users make it the default – trails even further behind on five%.

And Chrome’s market share is only going up, increasing in a year from 65%. Behind Microsoft Edge lies a long tail of “others”. These include Opera, Brave, Vivaldi, DuckDuckGo, Yandex and the once-dominant Firefox, which never fails to annoy its dwindling number of users with popups demanding that they log-in to websites using Google.

Chrome’s dominance persists over all platforms and in all regions, only dipping just below 50% on tablet computers, while Apple’s Safari running on iPads weighs in at 31%.

In the UK, Google Chrome’s market share is 50% on all platforms, while Safari and Microsoft Edge enjoy market shares of 31% and 10.5%, respectively.

Google’s commanding market share in web browser technology was also highlighted in an ongoing antitrust trial in the US brought by the US Department of Justice.

The DOJ has argued that Google used its financial muscle and exclusive contracts to shut out potential rivals in the market in order to make its money spinning search engine – and Chrome – so widely used. They help drive its lucrative advertising empire.

But at the beginning of September, Google avoided a forced sale of Chrome when it agreed to share search data from its browser with rivals. While District Judge Amit Mehta confirmed remedies were needed, he dismissed the most far-reaching proposals made by the Department of Justice (DOJ).

That relief no doubt contributed to Google’s decision to embed its Gemini AI into Chrome. Mike Torres, Google vice president of product, claimed that this move would enable Chrome to “better anticipate your needs”.

Last week, the company was back in court to defend its dominant and lucrative online advertising empire from being broken up. US District Judge Leonie Brinkema had declared in April that parts of Google's advertising technology stack functioned as an illegal monopoly.

Now, the company is back in court to fight a rearguard action over the remedies that could be imposed.

At the centre of the dispute is Google's ad exchange, AdX, where online publishers sell ad space through automated auctions that take place in milliseconds as users load websites.

Google charges publishers about a 20% fee for each transaction. The DOJ argues that Google manipulates these auctions to favour its own products and extract unfair profits, while shutting out competitors.