IMPORTANT: C.I.A. Releases New Internet Usage by Country Report - The Effect on Share

All of our global usage share reports are weighted based on C.I.A. data on how many internet users per country there are. For example, we have more data on the U.S. than China so we weight the Chinese data proportionaly higher according to the research provided by the C.I.A.

In February, the C.I.A. released new data on how many internet users per country there are. It shows a large increase in the global percentage of Chinese users and a decrease in the global percentage of users from the U.S., U.K, Germany, France and other developed countries.

These geographic shifts in internet usage have an significant impact on the global usage share numbers starting in February. This adjustment corrects an increasing inaccuracy over time as population shifts occur and reflects reality more closely than unadjusted numbers. Country-level reporting is unaffected by this change. For informational purposes, the following report shows the C.I.A. data we use:

Geographic Shifts in Internet Usage Show Firefox Over-Reported, Internet Explorer Gains Share

With the new C.I.A. numbers factored in, Firefox loses global share since many of the countries it is most popular in (Western European, in particular) now have a lower percentage of global internet users. Internet Explorer gains as browser usage shifts to countries with higher percentages of Internet Explorer users.

Internet Explorer picks up gains in the following areas:
Internet Explorer on Windows: +.86 (62.40% to 63.26%)
Internet Explorer 8.0 on Windows: +.1.03% (38.77% to 39.80%)
Internet Explorer 9.0 on Windows: +.10% (.56% to .66%)
And the Internet Explorer 9.0 beta on Windows 7 is now at 2.09%.

Geographic Shifts in Internet Usage Decrease iOS and Mac Share

The Mac and iOS devices show a one-time adjustment in February due to the new C.I.A. numbers, since they are less popular in China and other developing countries, they show less share. This does not mean that the Mac and iOS lost users.