Corporate Website Browser Usage

After doing some recent work on a website that catered to corporate customers we noticed something strange. Almost 30% of their traffic was from users on Internet Explorer 6. We were surprised that more corporations did not move to IE 7. Users at big companies are normally not allowed to install software onto their work computers. Software upgrades and installations are usually pushed down by corporate IT after extensive testing with their internal corporate web applications. Many corporations develop their internal web applications for only one browser. This cuts down on development and testing costs but can become very expensive when the target browser changes. With budget and staff cutbacks it may have become too time consuming and expensive for some large companies to upgrade browsers leaving them stranded on IE 6.

Public Website Browser Usage

Website and web application development for public use need to support multiple browsers. Their users are free to use any browser they choose.  Microsoft pushes browser updates to users, making it very easy for people with little computer experience to keep their browser up to date. Consumer facing public sites need to adapt to changes in browser technology quickly. Since they already support multiple browsers, adapting to new browsers and browser versions becomes much easier.

Monmouth County Browser Usage

This got us thinking about our customers. Most of our customers are small businesses in Monmouth County New Jersey selling to consumers located in Monmouth County. How does the Monmouth County consumer browser usage compare to the rest of the world? Monmouth County users use more IE 8, Chrome, Safari and Firefox and less IE 6 and IE7. This can be explained by a number of factors. Monmouth County is more affluent, ranked 43rd in household income by county for the United States. This translates to more new computer purchases and more broadband usage. New computers that ship with Windows 7 have IE 8 pre-installed. Users with broadband are more apt to install a large upgrade, including browsers.

Monmouth County & Safari

The use of Safari is most likely attributable to Mac and iPhone usage. Safari is the default browser on the Mac, iPhone and iPad. We don't have numbers on Monmouth County usage of the iPhone as compared to the rest of the world but we can assume based on household income levels it would be considerably higher. With the iPad  and new iPhone 4.0 we expect Safari usage to continue to grow.

Can I Dump IE 6?

How does this data help us? In a perfect world every browser would be able to access every website. Unfortunately this is not the case. It takes time and money to ensure a website works for each browser. We need to concentrate our efforts where it will have the greatest effect on our audience.  When IE 6 usage was above 10%  we needed to make accommodations. Monmouth County's usage of IE 6 is bellow 5% and falling. We can stop making custom adjustments for IE 6. We can start to transition our efforts to better supporting Safari and Chrome. Even businesses that cater to Monmouth County may have a unique demographic that needs to be taken into account. If you're selling Apple products to users in Monmouth County your Safari numbers may be much higher.