Microsoft is closing the gap between Edge and Apple’s Safari, making it the world’s second-most-used desktop browser, a status that could change in a few months. The current web browsing software market is dominated by Google Chrome, which by a huge margin is the most popular desktop browser. However, in the fierce battle for second place, Apple’s Safari browser may soon be replaced by Microsoft’s Edge.
As a replacement for the once-dominant Internet Explorer browser, Microsoft Edge has slowly gained more users, according to StatCounter’s desktop browser market share chart. Over the past year, it has steadily risen from a 7.81% share in January 2021 to 9.54% in January 2021.
While this has already helped it overtake Firefox (it did in March 2021), Edge’s share has gradually increased over time, with January figures showing it at 9.54%. In contrast, Safari has remained relatively stable over time, with its share currently at 9.84%.
If Edge’s usage continues to increase, it may gain enough share to replace Safari’s second place, pushing the latter to third place, on the one hand, it may also lead to Safari’s fourth place, as the re-emergence of Mozilla Firefox makes Its January market share reached 9.18%, in the close range of Edge and Safari.
For reference, Google Chrome reported a 65.38% share in January 2022, its lowest value in the past 12 months after reaching a high of 68.76% in June.
On a regional basis, in North America, Safari leads Edge by about 5 percentage points and is the region where the Edge browser is most well-developed. In Asia, Microsoft already leads with 7.46% to 5.41%, while in Europe, Safari trails Edge’s 10.9% with 9.95% and Firefox’s 10.92%.
While Edge poses a threat to Safari on desktops, Safari still enjoys a sizable audience on tablets and smartphones . When we look at all platforms globally, Safari comes in second with 19.84%, behind Chrome with 63.06%, and ahead of Firefox and Edge, which are not much different at 4.18% and 4.12%, respectively.