Google's Chrome exceeded 20% of the worldwide internet browser market during the month of June for the first time, according to StatCounter, the free website analytics company. The firm's research arm StatCounter Global Stats reports that Chrome took 20.7% of the global market, up from 2.8% in June 2009. In the same period Microsoft?s Internet Explorer has fallen from 59% to 44% globally and Firefox dropped slightly from 30% to 28%.

Chrome has performed particularly well in South America where it overtook Firefox in April to become the number two browser. In June it reached 29.7%, ahead of Firefox's 24.6% and behind IE at 44.1%.

In the US Chrome has risen to 16% behind market leader IE on 46.5% and Firefox on 24.7%. In the UK, Chrome at 21.1% is now neck and neck with Firefox on 21.7%. IE leads the UK market on 46.4%. (For other individual country or regional analysis see StatCounter Global Stats).

StatCounter Global Stats are based on aggregate data collected on a sample exceeding 15 billion page views per month (4 billion from the US) from the StatCounter network of more than three million websites.