The latest discovery from Statcounter has indicated that the Microsoft Edge market share rose 4% for the first time ever in November 2021. It marks the browser’s place as the world’s third most popular service, just behind Safari and Chrome. Moreover, new data suggests Microsoft Edge is slowly starting to charm users away from Google Chrome, which has had domination and control over the web browser market for years now. Meanwhile, Google Chrome was the only major browser to lose market share last month, which is now responsible for 64.04% of web activity, down from a peak of 65.27% in the summer. Point to be noted that the gap between Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome remains massive, and the latter won’t fall from the top spot any time soon.

However, Microsoft will still be encouraged by the performance of its new flagship browser. The tech giant is hoping to regain a foothold in the browser market after the infamous decrease of Internet Explorer, which was once used by 95%. Its growth has been fueled in large part by the retirement of Edge Legacy and Internet Explorer since the new Chromium-based Edge went live last year and Microsoft carefully funneled users towards its new service. It is noteworthy that the company is tasked with figuring out how to move people away from the likes of Firefox, Safari, and Chrome to maintain this rate of growth.

Microsoft has been aggressive in its attempts to push Edge in recent months, both exploiting the large Windows 10 and 11 install base to boost its user numbers and making it more difficult to switch default browsers, although it has since retreated a little on its position. However, the company has also delivered a consistent stream of new features for the browser, ranging from new Microsoft 365 integrations to tools designed to help users save money in the run-up to Christmas. It is important that Edge now appears to be successfully padding out its user base with converts from Chrome after overtaking Mozilla’s browser in the rankings for the first time in July. However, the progress is slow but the signs are productive and positive for Microsoft.