Microsoft's market share bleeding with Internet Explorer hasn't stopped, it seems. Even with the release of version 8, which already sits at over 15% market share by itself, the company has seen a net loss in people using IE to browse the web. According to recent statistics, they have lost around 11.4% in total since March, with Firefox, Safari and Chrome all seeing increases during that same period.
IE8 has managed to achieve explosive growth, but it isn't enough to make up the losses being sustained by IE7 and IE6 both. As a collective, the browsers are estimated to hold a combined market share of under 55% in the United States. Those figures vary wildly based on who is doing the measurement, with some estimates still giving IE a comfortable 72% share. Still, the correlation between an increase in IE8 growth and the decrease in IE6/7 users cannot be ignored. It is clear that users already making use of earlier versions of IE are apt to switch, but that Microsoft is having a tough time "bringing back" those who made the switch to alternative browsers.
Will alternative browsers keep positive growth, or will IE8 manage to win back lost customers?