It's always interesting to analyze browser and operating system statistics in China, as local internet users cling to older software more than anyone else and refuse to upgrade until they really have no other choice.
Data provided by research firm StatCounter for the month of April 2014 shows that Google Chrome is the leading browser in China with a 44.71% share, followed by Internet Explorer with 33.7%.
What's interesting is that while Internet Explorer is the second most popular browser in the country, Firefox has fallen to fourth place behind the locally developed Sogou Explorer, which runs on 7.07% of computers in China.
Sogou Explorer is developed by Sogou, a subsidiary of Sohu.com, and uses a dual-engine configuration that borrows the browsing engine from both Internet Explorer and Google Chrome.
Interestingly, Sogou Explorer usage has grown so much in recent years that it is now the country's third-leading operating system, while Firefox has lost ground and is now installed on only 5.37% of Chinese computers. Another local application, namely the QQ browser, has a market share of 2.87%.
China is also one of the countries where Windows XP remains extremely popular, even though Microsoft has already stopped support for this version of the operating system, but local users have shown no intention of moving to a newer version, such as Windows 7 or 8.1.
