Heavy surfers, Western India prefer Chrome, Cafes go for IE and Firefox

Google’s Chrome browser is more popular among heavy Internet users while Firefox users tend to be online less often, according to a study by India-based online research firm Juxt.

According to the study, Chrome users access the Internet most frequently, with nearly 2/3rd of them accessing Internet
either throughout the day or over 5 times in a day. In comparison, Internet Explorer users access the Internet 3.5
times a day and Firefox users, once in a day.

India is the largest market for Chrome in the world, according to Google.

The reason was for Chrome’s popularity was also unearthed by the study — the fact that most of the Internet users in India are young. Older users tend to stick to the default browser that comes with the operating system — Internet Explorer in most cases.

According to the study, 58% of Chrome users in India and 50% of FF/Mozilla users are aged between 25-35 years.

The study also threw up an curious finding — Western India (Mumbai, Gujarat) seems to prefer Chrome while the percentage of Chrome users was less in other areas. 40% of all Chrome usage in India came from the West, according to the study.

Chrome has a 24% marketshare in India, according to StatCounter.com, while it is globally just 16%. The Google browser has been gaining marketshare at a rapid pace in the country while that of Firefox has remained static at around 33% and that of Explorer fell from 51% to 39% in one year.

The Juxt survey also found that Chrome is used by home users more than by offices or cyber cafes. 81% of users were surfing from home while a third of Firefox and Explorer users came from Cyber Cafes, indicating the latters’ preference for the two ‘older’ browsers.

41% of Internet users are using all three browsers (Chrome, IE and FF/Mozilla) from home, only 34% are using them from office/work area and 25% from cyber cafes, the report added.