Chrome gains market share as IE drops nearly 2 percentage points

On the mobile front, Safari continues to dominate the mobile/tablet browser market

It won't be long before Microsoft's share of the desktop browser market dips below 50%, if Internet Explorer continues to lose usage share at its current clip.

In the month of October, IE lost nearly two percentage points, falling to 52.63% of the desktop browser market from 54.39% in September, according to data from NetApplications.com.

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Google's Chrome browser picked up a good portion of IE's loss, boosting its share to 17.62% of the desktop market, up from 16.2% a month earlier. Firefox held onto its No. 2 position with essentially flat growth: 22.51% market share compared to 22.48% in September.

Safari continued its slow and steady climb, adding four-tenths of a percentage point and ending the month with 5.43% desktop market share compared to 5.02% in September. Opera fell slightly to 1.56% from 1.67% a month earlier.

On the mobile front, Safari continues to dominate the mobile/tablet browser market. It ended October with a commanding 62.17% share of the market -- a gain of more than 6.5 percentage points from 55.59% in September.

Android moved into the No. 2 slot with 18.65% of the mobile/tablet browser market, up from 16.03% in September. Android traded places in the rankings with Opera Mini, which fell to the No. 3 position with 13.12% market share, down from 18.92%.

Opera Mini is followed by Symbian with 2.55% (down from 4.7%), BlackBerry with 2.04% (down from 2.68%), and Opera Mobile with 0.49% (down from 0.51%), according to Net Applications.

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