Mac Internet share hits record 8.87%; Windows drops below 90%
Apple's (AAPL) slice of the Internet pie grew measurably in November as both the Mac and the iPhone hit record numbers in a Net Applications Web survey issued overnight Monday and updated Monday morning.
At the same time, Microsoft's (MSFT) Web presence crossed two psychological barriers, with Windows' Internet share dropping below 90% for the first time and Internet Explorer's market share retreating to less than 70%.
The Mac's share of Web hits, having lost ground in October, grew 8.04% in November to a record 8.87%, according to the Web metrics firm's preliminary corrected data. The iPhone's gains were sharper: up 12.12% to 0.37%.
(Linux grew even faster, up nearly 16.9% for the month, following a 22% drop the month before.)
Windows' share slipped nearly 10% to 89.62% as Vista's gains failed to make up for sharp losses by Windows XP.
Internet Explorer's shrinkage — down 2.1% to 69.78% – was largely due to gains by Mozilla's Firefox, which topped 20% for the first time in November.
"Reaching 20 percent worldwide market share is a significant milestone for Firefox and Mozilla," Mozilla CEO John Lilly told Net Applications. "It's a huge achievement by the global Mozilla community, one that just a few years ago most would have considered impossible."
Net Applications' monthly surveys are conducted by sampling browser data from some 160 million visits to Web sites operated by firm's clients. Although the company describes the results as “market shares,” Net Applications does not actually measure share of market in the traditional sense of sales revenue or unit sales. It does, however, provide a consistent methodology by which to measure browser and operating system trends.
To see Net Applications’ Nov. 1 report, click here. The results are summarized in the tables below.
These monthly reports, however, mask considerable variation from week to week and day to day. To get a sense of how variable web browsing patterns can be, see the see-saw graphs below the fold created by Financial Alchemist's Turley Muller, who has been tracking Net Applications' daily reports since last June.
Below: Muller's daily tracking of Mac and iPhone Internet shares.
For more of Muller's analytical work, visit his Financial Alchemist website here.
Apple has always been a leader in innovative products. However, there is still times that I prefer PC's. We have three MACs and three PC's in our house. Oscar T at http://www.newquestcity.com
don't go by apple's market share in terms of macs sold or ipods/iphones sold. infact if you analyze the bottomline of the company's profit along with microsoft, only then you will get the true picture of what apple has been trying for years and now seem to be achieving. recnt reports shows it has a net operating profit almost 62% of microsoft with only may be 8% global market share. thats worrying eventually for the microsoft. and if i am not wrong with my forcast 5 years down the line the story should be in faour of apple than to microsoft. kudos to steve jobs. and hard luck to earswhile gates.
In reply to Louis Kindear:
I see no sign of Linux fading into irrelevance in these stats. In fact, it has the largest relative growth of the top three.
This is something that should make you as a consumer happy, because the threat of Linux is what keeps both Microsoft and Apple (somewhat) on their toes — there is a free alternative they have to compete with, that won't go away.
Even so, I'm happy that Apple is doing well, because Microsoft does indeed have more power than it deserves, and every user switching to Mac means less power to Microsoft.
Back when the music sold online was mostly DRM-protected, I was happy that people bought it, because I knew they had a lesson coming, which would in the end educate them and force the record companies to sell unprotected music. In much the same way, I'm happy people are switching from Microsoft to Mac.
"Wow, this jail cell is much better looking than my old one!"
Jan 2008
XP + Vista = 87.07%
Nov 2008
XP + Vista = 86.76%
A drop of .31%
A month ago it was a gain of .33%
A month before that it was a drop of .07%
It bounces around.
The big change is Win 2000 dropping from 2.71% to 1.56%
I didn't realize that Mac browsers
and operating systems are still
a minority. I appreciate the
statistics.
thanks from tony at:
Um Louis, Linux achieved 15 percent growth in November according to the chart. That's not quite "fading away" as you put it. I have a MPB and a couple Ubuntu boxes, and each have their strengths and weaknesses.
I am not surprised by these facts whatsoever! Apple is gaining strength daily, I noticed this several years ago when I launched a popular Switcher Site and saw how quickly it gained momentum. Apple has got it right now going after PC users with iPods and iPhones… not to mention their rock solid and years ahead of the game OS X operating system.
TO Webmaster
You have a problem with the default text in wordpress on a mac it shows up all garbled.
Where did these statistics come from? One specific website? Its a bit of an off way… in order to have accurate statistics, you need more than one website, 160 million viewers or not. You need all of the market share.
And what about users who disable user agents?
Also, the iPhone does not count as Mac, and would have little to nothing to do with the rising Mac operating system share of the market. The iPhone is an Apple product, however, not part of the Macintosh line.
ex ped: Net Applications claims to have 8,000 clients around the world, but I suspect the lion's share are in the U.S.
This is great news for Apple as Linux continues to fade into irrelevance, thus eliminating one more problematic platform that is dividing the market and giving more power to Microsoft than they deserve. As more and more Linux users dump that terrible platform and switch to Apple, the numbers for OS X have nowhere to go but up.
Its interesting to know that despite all the huha about Microsoft and IE, it still has 90%/70% share in OS/Browser categories respectively.
All of the MS figures are 10 and 3.5 times larger than the nearest competitors.
And its not like the OS/Browser wars started yesterday. Its been years now. So, gotta give some credit to Microsoft definitely.
Commenting from Firefox on XP.
This a data es also stands good correlation with Media Metrix. Net Applications is a good source for information about the browsers and OS.
BTW, many relevant sources refers this firm.
What happened to Mac OS share in the 2nd week of August?
ex ped: I put the question to Turley Muller. He's not sure, but speculates it has something to do with the Beijing Olympics, which got underway Aug. 8.
The consumer may be taking their last few breaths, but they're going to make those breaths count by getting that MacBook they've been waiting so long for, or getting one big meaningful gift that really will make a statement under the tree — the 'wow' gadget of an iPod (Touch for me please) or an iPhone. When the gifts are fewer, they at least will be something that makes a great impact and lasts for years.
Oh please.
Net apps is a referral links company. They in no way cover the net, rather they cover punters clicking through from customers of net apps.
I would hardly bet the contents of my hankie on this data.
This data along with the strong Black Friday sales data simply supports my estimate for 2.8 million macs and 7-8 million iPhones on the quarter. Strong sell-through of Apple's new notebook computers and 3G iPhones will like lead to $10.9 billion in revenue on the quarter. I will be very interested in seeing NPD data for Macs and iPods for the month of November. If we see 20%+ YoY growth in Mac sales for the month of November, 2.8 million macs is in the bag. Also, if we see any solid growth in iPod sales, expect 20-21 million iPods. Thanks for this PED.
Regards,
Andy
That may be a simple explanation, but it is too simplistic. It ignores the trending that is observed.
The simple explanation of Mac's October's drop is that more people use PC at work, Macs at home.
With the election and dive in the economy/stock market, more people browse for news during work hours in October, so we saw a gain in using Windows to browse the net.
Now, election is over, and people are just used to (or give up) on the economy, so the browsing pattern goes back to normal.
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