Analyst: Mac OS X Share Hit 10 Percent And Still Growing
9:58 am, January 5th, 2009, Ed Sutherland
A week after one survey found the Mac OS share nearing 10 percent, the gains appear to be increasing as Apple continues to make headway against Windows, an analyst said Monday.
Shaw Wu, analyst with Kaufman Bros., told clients he sees only accelerating advances by Apple. December’s 9.6 percent marketshare for Mac OS X was 0.75 percent ahead of November, which also saw a 0.65 percent jump, Wu said.
Last week, Web tracking firm Net Applications announced the percentage of visits by Mac OS-based browsers in December rose to 9.6 from 8.9 percent. The latest figure is more than two points above a year ago, when Apple share reached a historic high: 7.3 percent.
Windows again lost ground in December, dropping to 88.7 percent of the market in December, the second percentage loss since November, when Redmond fell below the magic 90 percent of the OS market.
Posted by Ed Sutherland in News | Comment on this article
The metrics in the linked brief don’t really jibe with your headline. This is about the browsers, not OSes. So Safari has a 9.6% share, but Firewire for OS X + Safari should be greater than 9.6. Using a simple IE:Safari ratio this would mean OS X browsers would be around 14%. Did this track unique users or just gross hits? Their comment about the spike in home use is important. Is there a correlation between Mac users and higher online buying? Does it show a growing base of Apples in the home? Since corporate buying still avoids the Mac, the sales of Apple to home users must be going through the roof! Wu and Net Applications are probably playing these stats very close to the vest. Browsers are free. The real valuable data is in the OS that’s running them.
This is still interesting and looks like great news for Apple – and us Redmondphobes, but I’m not sure December is a valid snapshot. There are just too many variables. I hope you get some more info about January trends that you can share.
And thank you for a post that doesn’t have the word iPhone anywhere.
imajoebob, on January 5th, 2009 at 11:24 am
It is easy to make a large gain when you only have a 9% share of the market.
Also if you have 90% on the market and drop to 88% you have lost nothing
brent, on January 9th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
That analyst was talking out of his…. Now April 09 and it has not budged an inch, neither will it.
Beano, on April 8th, 2009 at 5:22 am