Google's internet browser Chrome has overtaken Apple's Safari in the US for the first time on a weekly basis according to figures released Monday by StatCounter.

The firm's research arm StatCounter Global Stats reports that for the week beginning 21 June Chrome overtook Safari to claim third place in the US browser market.

"This is quite a coup for Google as they have gone from zero to almost 10% of the US market in under two years," commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter. "There is a battle royal going on between Google and Apple in the internet browser space (Chrome v Safari) as well as in the mobile market (Android v iPhone)."

Chrome with 8.97% took third place in the US browser market ahead of Safari with 8.88%. Microsoft's Internet Explorer still dominates the US Internet browser market with 52%, followed by Firefox (28.5%).

Globally Chrome has been well ahead of Safari for some time with 9.4% of the market compared to 4% for Safari. Microsoft's Internet Explorer has 53% of the global market followed by Firefox on 31%.

The data is based on an analysis of 3.6 billion page views (874 million from the US) for the week 21 to 27 June 2010 collected from the StatCounter network of over three million websites.