More like: A lot of corporate users mandated a specific version of IE and wouldn't allow anything else to be installed.
I have never bought a prebuilt Windows PC, so this is pure speculation, but I am wildly guessing that the dominance of Chrome is because computers are now coming with Chrome preinstalled and configured as the default, and most people don't care, and just stick with the default.
Now the reason everyone uses it is because it's psychologically the new "default", whether it is on the actual system or not. Everybody knows that's just what you do when you get a new computer: you go install Chrome. And the irony is that even now, with Edge being basically the same thing, most people don't bother to re-evaluate that default assumption that "the windows browser is bad". They just use Chrome.
That's one way to look at it.
Another way is to say that Microsoft has lost customer's trust and now has to work extra hard to earn it back.
IMO they've learned their lesson, at least for now, but it would also be great if others could learn from Microsoft's mistake too.
I'm not aware of any Windows machines shipping with Chrome pre-installed. But as soon as you use any website that's owned by Google you get spammed with install links for Chrome.
https://www.geekwire.com/2021/chromebooks-outsold-macs-world...