Net Applications’ “Market Share” has posted their operating system market share statistics for January 2007 showing Apple Macintosh share at 6.22% (4.34% for non-Intel-powered Macs and 1.88% for Intel-powered Macs). Last month, December 2006, Net Applications pegged 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 0.55% in a single month (following December’s rise in Mac market share of 0.29% over November’s 5.39% (4.10% non-Intel, 1.29% Intel-powered Macs).
Since August (4.33% total), Mac market share has risen 1.89 percentage points in just the past five months.
Net Applications’ last six months of “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% = 5.39%
DEC: 4.15% + 1.52% = 5.67%
JAN: 4.34% + 1.88% = 6.22%
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.
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’ January 2007 “Market Share” stats here.
MacDailyNews Note: Different companies uses different methodologies, so the actual share figures aren’t as meaningful as the share trends they show. Net Applications’ measurements show Mac market share continues to increase – up nearly 2 percentage points in just the last 153 days (Aug. 31, 2006 to Jan. 31, 2007).
[UPDATE: 8:22pm EST: change “%” to “percentage points” and corrected NOV total share figure.]
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Gartner: Apple’s U.S. Mac shipments up 30.6% year over year – January 18, 2007
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
The numbers do not even measure MARKET share, because MARKET share means your percentage of a SALES MARKET. Since nothing is (probably) being bought or sold by all the browsers and surfers that this study measured, this study does not even attempt to measure the Mac’s MARKET SHARE. What it attempts to measure is the Mac’s INSTALLED BASE SHARE or INSTALLED SHARE.
A great clue to the complete incorrectness of this is the fact that most of the numbers are made up of NON-Intel Mac — WHICH ARE NOT EVEN ON SALE ANYMORE, so what MARKET exactly are we talking about?
This is good news for Macs but it has exactly zero to do with the typical 3-5% Mac market share. After all, maybe what it tells us is not that people are buying more Macs (I know they are, but come on here, get this right!), but that people are using them more once they’ve bought them. Or maybe it tells us that the demographic of Mac users is shifting toward those who spend a lot more time surfing — but even from that it DOESN’T follow that more Macs have been sold.
One thing has nothing necessarily to do with the other. Market share could actually even rise while installed base share goes down, if Mac build quality suffers to to point where people are replacing their machines more. Same number of users, but more sales. What we’re seeing here is the installed ONLINE base going up, which just means that total Mac websurfing is growing.
Why? Who knows? Maybe it’s great news maybe it’s nothing. But I for one would ignore any answer from anyone who insists on calling this survey “market share”, because they’ve already been dead wrong once, haven’t they?
DB.
Hehe…. “I should have bought a Mac”….. alot of people are going to be saying that- and buying new Macs- in the next few years.
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