Google Chrome's path to domination may come sooner than expected

Google Chrome is continuing its path towards browser domination and is expected to overtake Internet Explorer as the world’s most-used browser worldwide as earlier as May this year.

Previously, we predicted that Chrome would become the world’s dominant browser by June of this year. However, at its current rate of market acquisition, and Internet Explorer’s continued decline, we could see this happen before the end of May.

Last month, Google Chrome became the world’s most popular browser for a single day, March 18. While the achievement was short-lived, it’s an occurrence that’s sure to become more prevalent in the months ahead.

Worldwide, Chrome’s market share now stands at 30.87%, compared to Internet Explorer on 34.81%. Chrome has climbed from 17.37% just 12 month ago, compared to Internet Explorer which has fallen from 45.11% market share in a similar period.

Chrome’s growth is really quite phenomenal. In fact, Chrome has experienced consecutive monthly market share gains since public release in December 2008.

Firefox continues to experience slight declines in usage, falling 5% in the 12 month to March 2012. Apple’s Safari has witnessed very slight gains, securing 1.7% market share in a similar period.

It’s not all bad news for Internet Explorer, however. The adoption rate of Internet Explorer 9 is extremely high, gaining 2.45% market share between February and March of this year. A sharp decline in Internet Explorer 8 usage suggests that IE users are upgrading to IE9, but overall Microsoft just can’t seem to attract new users on the scale it should be.