Apple's Safari is now being used by more than 1 billion users around the world, but the milestone was likely hit much earlier than the report claims.
Safari has enjoyed a position of being the default system browser for iPhone, iPad, and Mac users, and that has enabled it to get a sizable user base over time. It is now claimed that the total number of Safari users has gone above 1 billion.
According to AtlasVPN's research, approximately 1,006,232,879 internet users employ Safari for their browsing, which makes it only the second browser in current use to have a user base measurable in the billions.
However, there is a lot of wiggle room for whether this is accurate, and if Safari already managed to get 1 billion users in the past.
AtlasVPN's method for working out the user count was to take the Internet World Stats internet user metric, and to combine them with the market share of Safari in April, as determined by GlobalStats. As the Internet World Stats data dates back to December 31, 2021, this may not necessarily be as accurate a combined metric as intended.
Using the system, Chrome has over 3.3 billion users, with Edge at 212.7 million, Firefox at 179 million, and "Samsung Internet" at 149.7 million. Proportionately, the numbers are accurate, but its not clear if the total number of users are.
If calculated for earlier months, Apple would've had a more substantial 1.042 billion users in January, using the same math.
In May, it was discovered that Safari had dropped from the second most used desktop browser in the world to third place, with GlobalStats data showing Microsoft's Edge browser had narrowly overtaken Apple's version.
