If latest StatCounter browser market share stats are any indication, Firefox might lose its standing as the world's second most popular web browser to Google Chrome sooner than you think. Google Chrome, as of June 2011, commands 20.02% share of the global web browser market, up from 14.85% in December 2010.

Internet Explorer(IE) is continuing its download spiral in 2011 as well. Market share of IE was around 46.94% in Dec 2010 and has come down significantly since then to 43.38% now(June 2011), a loss of nearly 4 percentage points in less than 6 months. But in the case of IE, this is not a surprise anymore. IE has been losing market share for sometime now and it seems like Microsoft is just not able to check the outflow of its once massive user base.

 

The most interesting case is that of Firefox. Even after the release of the heavily upgraded Firefox 4.0, there isn't any increase of market share in real terms. But if you look closely, you will see a very slight dip in market share overall for Firefox. Firefox commanded 30.76% web browser market share in December 2010 which is now at 29.08%. 

 

If this growth curve continues unabated, Google Chrome will be breathing down Firefox's neck by the end of this year itself. Firefox has recently decided to speed up the release cycle and you can expect the release of next Firefox 5.0 very soon. But will that be enough to counter the astonishing growth of Google Chrome? We will find that out in the next few months.