Analytics firm: Firefox EU share is at its peak, US share down

According to French Web metrics firm XiTi, Mozilla Firefox continues its unabated growth in popularity, reaching around 29% usage share in Europe overall in March.

Microsoft Internet Explorer saw its usage share begin to drop in the at the end of 2005, roughly one year after Firefox 1.0 was released and began to be embraced internationally. In 2006, the XiTi Monitor reported Firefox had continued its market share increase to around 23-25%.

By last year, the firm's study of the Browser War between IE7 and FF2 showed that the two were very close, with Internet Explorer 7 leading in 16 European countries and Firefox 2 leading in 14.

Led by Finland with 45.9%, Poland with 44%, and Slovenia with 43.7%, the latest numbers from XiTi show that Firefox's record high 29% European usage actually increases by just under 2% on weekends, suggesting it may be many IE7 workplace users' preferred home browser.

Firefox is actually "in very light retreat" in North America, according to the latest XiTi Monitor with a 1% decline, while its progress in South America and Asia is similar with that of Europe. Africa's use of Mozilla Firefox hit a record high in March 2008 with 17.9%, marking a 3% growth, the biggest increase of any continent this time around.