Segment market share statistics is a bit different from general  browser stats. We are looking at the quality of the active browsers rather than who produced it. We don't really care which brand the browser is, as long as it conforms to the standards specified within each segment.

Desktop browsers are still – but only barely – the most common way of browsing the web, representing approximately 49% of page visits (vs. 60% back in June 2015). Mobile browser numbers are still climbing and mobile/smartphones now represent approximately 46% of the total page visits (up from 35% in 2015), while tablets is stable on about 5%.

Modern browsers across all platforms (the desktop, tablet and smartphone segments) make up about 83% of all page visits. The automatic updates are really working. But it means we still have a average of 17% users who are still stuck with old systems or equipment, which simply cannot be updated. We have seen a drop in older desktop browsers, possibly due to several attacks against older Windows systems over the last years, but there is still a quite a few 2nd and 3rd generation phones actively being used.

Anyway, here are the numbers for each segment.

December 2017

Read the listings as %-of-group / %-of-all.

Desktop

  • desktop: ~86% / ~42%
  • desktop_ie11: ~6% / ~3%
  • desktop_ie10: ~0% / ~0%
  • desktop_ie9: ~2% / ~1%
  • desktop_light: ~6% / ~3%

Desktop browsers makes up for ~49% of total visits.

Tablet

  • tablet: ~80% / ~4%
  • tablet_light: ~20% / ~1%

Tablet browsers makes up for ~5% of total visits.

Mobile

  • smartphone: ~81% / ~37%
  • mobile: ~17% / ~8%
  • mobile_light: ~2% / ~1%

Mobile browsers makes up for ~46% of total visits.

Others

  • tv: ~0%
  • seo: ~0%

Local variations

The statistics also vary a lot on each continent. In Denmark desktops are closer to 70%, for Europe it's 60%, while in Africa desktops only adds up to 35% and in India merely 25%. In the latter two, mobiles essentially makes up the rest, with a much higher percentage of older and less powerful devices.

Availability defines usage

It is also important to understand that usage indeed depends on availability. Some older devices (especially mobile phones) would have a much higher market share if they were in fact supported by content providers (or even the stat trackers). Ironically they are typically not supported because it appears as if no one is using them. Huh.

Notes on Statistics

These statistics are deducted from a number of statistics sources to  provide a meaningful average overview. Each source typically has some over-representation, because the websites providing visitor information tend to fall into a certain category, which again will have an influence on how users access the site. Thus looking only at one source will not by itself give balanced picture.

There is grounds to assume that the small rise in mobile devices is partly due to a new wave of more powerful (and strict) ad blockers, which also block the stats trackers. As these blockers are much more available for desktop devices, that will lead to a drop in desktop tracking.

Sources: gs.statcounter.com, netmarketshare.com, w3counter.com and analytics.wikimedia.org.