Firefox 'passes 20 per cent market share' in Europe

The Mozilla Firefox browser has achieved a market share of more than 20 per cent in Europe, according to the latest figures released by French Web metrics firm XiTi.

XiTi, which based its figures on a sample of 32.5 million Web site visits that took place on 8 January, said that Finland has the highest proportion of Firefox users, followed by Slovenia and Germany. It found that the open-source browser is used by 38, 36 and 30 per cent of users in these countries, respectively.

The UK has one of the lowest proportions of Firefox users in Europe, accounting for only 11 per cent of Web site visits there. The 20 per cent overall figure for Europe is an average calculated from the figures obtained for each European country, according to XiTi.

But XiTi's figures should probably be taken with a grain of salt, as Firefox usage tends to be highest over the weekend, according to Tristan Nitot, the president of Mozilla Europe.

"We should emphasise that these measures have been done on a Sunday, when Firefox usage peaks. The Firefox browser is less used during the week, as enterprises are more conservative when it comes to using a newer browser," said Nitot, in a blog posting that commented on figures released earlier by the Web metrics company.

Other Web metrics companies produce more conservative estimates of Firefox's market share. In November, OneStat.com reported that Firefox had achieved a global market share of 11.5 per cent, although it found that only 4.9 per cent of people were using it in the UK.