Net Applications’ “Market Share” has posted their operating system market share statistics for December 2006 showing Apple Macintosh share at 5.67% (4.15% for non-Intel-powered Macs and 1.52% for Intel-powered Macs). According to Net Applications’ measurements, Mac market share rose 0.29% in a single month over November’s 5.39% (4.10% non-Intel, 1.29% Intel-powered Macs).
Since August (4.33% total), Mac market share has risen 1.34% in four months.
Net Applications’ 2006 “Market Share” stats:
(Month: non-Intel Macs + Intel-powered Macs = total Mac market share)
AUG: 3.71% + 0.62% = 4.33%
SEP: 3.88% + 0.84% = 4.72%
OCT: 4.09% + 1.12% = 5.21%
NOV: 4.10% + 1.29% = 5.29%
DEC: 4.15% + 1.52% = 5.67%
Net Applications’ “Market Share” uses a unique methodology for collecting this data. The company collects data from the browsers of site visitors to their exclusive on demand network of small to medium enterprise live stats customers. The sample size for these sites is more than 40,000 urls. The information published is an aggregate of the data from this network of hosted website statistics. The site unique visitor and referral information is summarized on a monthly basis. The websites in ther population represent dozens of countries in regions including North America, South America, Western Europe, Australia / Pacific Rim and Parts of Asia.
These figures back up recent reports by Gartner and IDC, showing Mac market share increasing to 6.1% and 5.8% respectively of U.S. market share in third quarter 2006, up from 4.6% and 4.8% respectively in second quarter 2006.
As each company uses different methodologies, the actual share figures aren’t as meaningful as the share trends they show. All three measures show Mac market share is increasing.
Reasons for Mac market share gains run the gamut from superior security vs. Windows, Apple’s growing retail store network, the iPod Halo Effect, award-winning design, Mac OS X, Mac-only applications such as iLife, ease-of-use, the Mac’s ability to run Mac OS X, Linux and Windows concurrently, word-of-mouth, excellent reviews, and more.
Net Applications’ December 2006 “Market Share” stats here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “RadDoc” for the heads up.]
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Net Applications: Apple’s Mac market share continues rise, now at 5.39%, up 31% year-over-year – December 01, 2006
Apple’s Mac market share surges, up 35-percent year-over-year as growth accelerates – November 01, 2006
Analyst: Apple has ‘real shot at dramatically expanding Macintosh market share’ – October 31, 2006
Analyst: Apple Mac gains market share, the reason why is significant – October 26, 2006
IDC: Apple Mac attained 5.8% of U.S. market share in Q3 06 – October 18, 2006
Gartner: Apple Mac grabbed 6.1% of U.S. market share in Q3 06 – October 18, 2006
Gartner: Apple Mac grabbed 4.6% U.S. market share in Q2 06 – July 19, 2006
IDC: Apple Mac attained 4.8% U.S. market share in Q2 06 – July 19, 2006
