North America Holds the Line for MT4 as MT5 Sweeps Five of Six Regions
A new FM Intelligence analysis, covering retail FX/CFD platform
visibility across 121 countries from Q4 2024 through Q1 2026, finds the global
shift from MetaTrader 4 to MetaTrader 5 moving at six different speeds
depending on region. North America stands out as the only territory where MT4
still beats MT5 on web visibility.
Every other
region has flipped to MT5 dominance, with MENA showing an MT5-to-MT4 ratio of
3.38, Africa at 2.70, and Europe at 1.78. North America sits at 0.87, the same
range it has occupied for six straight quarters.
Six Regions, Six Platform
Identities
The FM
Intelligence tracks nine platforms across six regions and finds that no single
one leads in more than three. xStation, the proprietary platform of Polish broker XTB, leads in Europe, LATAM and MENA. MT5 leads in
APAC and Africa. MT4 leads only in North America.
That
fragmentation contrasts with the global picture FM Intelligence reported
earlier this year, when MT5 first crossed MT4 in trading
volume at 54.2% of
combined MetaQuotes volumes. By Q3 2025, MT5’s share had widened to 62%, and the Q1 2026 Quarterly Report
puts the figure at 65%.
The
web-visibility data converges with the volume picture at the global level. It
diverges sharply at the regional level, especially in North America, where
MetaQuotes’ combined share of platform traffic actually rose 2.8 percentage
points over the past year while declining in four of the five other regions.
Why North America Lags
The North
American ratio has moved within a 0.81 to 0.95 band across six quarters,
peaking at 0.95 in Q2 2025 before settling at 0.87 in Q1 2026. FM Intelligence
points to two structural factors that may help explain the lag.
The first
is the regulatory environment. The National Futures Association’s leverage caps
and product restrictions have constrained the new-account product launches that
have pushed MT5 adoption in other regions, with US retail clients limited to
50:1 on major FX pairs and shut out of CFDs entirely.
The second
is that MetaQuotes’ combined share kept growing in North America while
shrinking elsewhere, which the analysis treats as a sign of slower migration
rather than a structural ceiling.
Europe Is an xStation
Story, Not a Platform Story
At the
opposite extreme, xStation captured 92% of European platform traffic in Q1
2026, with 83% of all xStation visibility worldwide originating from European
countries. Germany alone contributed 4 million xStation visits in the quarter,
equivalent to 28% of the platform’s global traffic from a single country.
The
geographic distribution of xStation traffic almost perfectly mirrors XTB’s
broker footprint, FM Intelligence calculates, with the same 83% European
concentration on both the platform and the broker side.
Among
non-MetaQuotes, non-xStation platforms, cTrader registered the largest regional share in every
region tracked, ranging from 2% in Europe to 7.5% in APAC.
The
full analysis, including regional concentration data and scenario modelling for
when North America’s MT5/MT4 ratio could cross 1.0, is available at FM Intelligence DataLab.
The
figures cited above measure web visibility to platform-branded domains and
product pages across 121 countries from Q4 2024 through Q1 2026. They are FM
Intelligence traffic measurements rather than reported trading volumes.
A new FM Intelligence analysis, covering retail FX/CFD platform
visibility across 121 countries from Q4 2024 through Q1 2026, finds the global
shift from MetaTrader 4 to MetaTrader 5 moving at six different speeds
depending on region. North America stands out as the only territory where MT4
still beats MT5 on web visibility.
Every other
region has flipped to MT5 dominance, with MENA showing an MT5-to-MT4 ratio of
3.38, Africa at 2.70, and Europe at 1.78. North America sits at 0.87, the same
range it has occupied for six straight quarters.
Six Regions, Six Platform
Identities
The FM
Intelligence tracks nine platforms across six regions and finds that no single
one leads in more than three. xStation, the proprietary platform of Polish broker XTB, leads in Europe, LATAM and MENA. MT5 leads in
APAC and Africa. MT4 leads only in North America.
That
fragmentation contrasts with the global picture FM Intelligence reported
earlier this year, when MT5 first crossed MT4 in trading
volume at 54.2% of
combined MetaQuotes volumes. By Q3 2025, MT5’s share had widened to 62%, and the Q1 2026 Quarterly Report
puts the figure at 65%.
The
web-visibility data converges with the volume picture at the global level. It
diverges sharply at the regional level, especially in North America, where
MetaQuotes’ combined share of platform traffic actually rose 2.8 percentage
points over the past year while declining in four of the five other regions.
Why North America Lags
The North
American ratio has moved within a 0.81 to 0.95 band across six quarters,
peaking at 0.95 in Q2 2025 before settling at 0.87 in Q1 2026. FM Intelligence
points to two structural factors that may help explain the lag.
The first
is the regulatory environment. The National Futures Association’s leverage caps
and product restrictions have constrained the new-account product launches that
have pushed MT5 adoption in other regions, with US retail clients limited to
50:1 on major FX pairs and shut out of CFDs entirely.
The second
is that MetaQuotes’ combined share kept growing in North America while
shrinking elsewhere, which the analysis treats as a sign of slower migration
rather than a structural ceiling.
Europe Is an xStation
Story, Not a Platform Story
At the
opposite extreme, xStation captured 92% of European platform traffic in Q1
2026, with 83% of all xStation visibility worldwide originating from European
countries. Germany alone contributed 4 million xStation visits in the quarter,
equivalent to 28% of the platform’s global traffic from a single country.
The
geographic distribution of xStation traffic almost perfectly mirrors XTB’s
broker footprint, FM Intelligence calculates, with the same 83% European
concentration on both the platform and the broker side.
Among
non-MetaQuotes, non-xStation platforms, cTrader registered the largest regional share in every
region tracked, ranging from 2% in Europe to 7.5% in APAC.
The
full analysis, including regional concentration data and scenario modelling for
when North America’s MT5/MT4 ratio could cross 1.0, is available at FM Intelligence DataLab.
The
figures cited above measure web visibility to platform-branded domains and
product pages across 121 countries from Q4 2024 through Q1 2026. They are FM
Intelligence traffic measurements rather than reported trading volumes.
