Net Applications’ Operating System stats for May 2008 show Apple’s Mac hit a new all-time high with 7.83% share of the operating systems visiting Net Applications’ network of websites worldwide. The stats also show Apple iPhone with 0.16% share and Apple iPod with 0.03%. Net Applications notes, “Apple has confirmed that its online inventories for the original version of the iPhone are sold out in the U.S. and U.K. Apple appears to be clearing out its inventories in preparation for the iPhone 2.0 release. This, in conjunction with customers holding off purchasing until 2.0 is released has temporarily leveled off the iPhone usage share.” The data is aggregated from 40,000 websites that are predominantly ecommerce or corporate sites.
Net Applications’ May 2008 Operating System Stats:
Microsoft Windows: 91.13% (vs. MAY 2006: 95.09%)
– XP: 72.12%
– Vista: 15.26%
Apple Macintosh: 7.83% (vs. MAY 2006: 4.43%)
– Intel: 5.02%
– PowerPC: 2.81%
Linux: 0.68% (vs. MAY 2006: 0.40%)
Apple iPhone: 0.16%
Apple iPod: 0.03%
Playstation: 0.03%
Nintendo Wii: 0.01%
SunOS: 0.01%
Net Applications’ Operating System Market Share for May 2008:
Net Applications’ Operating System Market Share Trend for Apple Macintosh for June 2006 to May 2008:
More details can be seen via Net Applications’ here.
MacDailyNews Note: As always, the actual percentage numbers are not as important as the trends shown since all “market share” reports have unique measurement sources. Net Applications, for example measures 40,000 corporate and ecommerce websites — how many of which are restricted to WIndows and/or IE, if any, we do not know. If anything, Net Applications is providing one measure of installed base, rather than “market share.” Again, what’s important is the trend (and consistent data points). The trend shows Apple’s Macintosh ascending.
I’m guessing the iPod is the iPod Touch. I’d have thought the iPod Touch would be higher than 0.03%.
Vista @ 15%???
I know 1 person who has Vista . . .
What Kevin said!
I also know one person with Vista but now I no longer talk to him (so it doesn’t count).
So, if you include the iPhone and touch, OS X is over 8%!
Hopefully we’ll see some exponential Mac growth over the next few years…
Linux hasn’t got a much bigger share than the iPhone, and it’s been around how much longer? LOL.
Linux is used mainly for servers and other services and those machines therefore don’t do much surfing of the web.
However the ecommerce stats are interesting since 8 % of web surfers and hence potential customers are using a Mac. Therefore, businesses need to be Mac-friendly if they want to get that business.
The steady rise in market share seems to be a linear function rather than the hoped for exponential one. At the rate shown it will take at least 6 years to get to 20% share. That gives Microshaft way too much time to recover from Vistaster. They might actually get Win 7 (otherwise known as Win OX 10.5), which is promised in three years, out by then.
But look — still only about 2% per year. Where’s the exponential growth?
At 20% there will be real traction – that could happen in less than 2 years – until recently, Apple were stagnant.
Apple are selling at 60% growth right now – which means we are looking at 12% next year and 18% in 2010.
That is a huge share, and would also mean that Apple have surpassed Microsoft in profits and market cap.
Beyond that they would have to license their OS, and that aint going to happen.
Yeah, the growth rate is linear and slow, but it’s growth. Not so many years ago, I almost came to believe I was addicted to a dying operating system, and the curve at that time backed up my pessimism. Not any more.
Based on growth from last year to this year, this stat will show Mac OS above 10% by early 2009.
Exponential is relative to the beginning point.
i.e. the story of one gold coin on the first square of the chess board – doubling the amount on every square sequentially. By the time you get to the last square the amount is the equivalent to the Bush national debt or the profit the oil companies make in the Middle East. Needless to say – you owe them all your money.
The 2% a year from a starting point about 2.5 to 3% is pretty significant. It’s still a very new trend, less than 2 years old, so I’d say it’s way too early to say if it’s exponential, linear, sustainable, or who knows?
This really will be interesting to watch, but it’d be foolish to make any long term predictions at this early stage.
Also, I’d say Apple has demonstrated they clearly know what they are doing and have an effective strategy to pull in new customers. With the future growth of the iPhone and who knows what else Apple is cooking up in their development labs, this will be fun to watch.
Hmmph. Nearly 8% market share, and climbing, and STILL no viruses. What does it take to get the attention of the malware community anyway?
@Drunk Cheney
An exponential function (e.g., y = ka^x, where a is any positive real number not equal to one) is exponential relative to any point on the curve, not just the beginning point. Apple’s growth appears to be linear (i.e., y = mx + b)
@Arthur Greenpeace
60% growth refers to the number of computers sold this year relative to last year, not a 60% increase in the proportion of the installed base from one year to the next.
Obviously, we’re all delighted with the steady growth, I was just noting that, even though many commentators on many web sites keep referring to the change in the installed base as exponential, it appears to be linear from this data, given the limitations in the time scale and method of data collection.
Off topic:
Have some fun with Egg Ducker Ballmer.
http://www.egg-attack.com/
MDN, git your ” Apple stock hits a new all time high” headlines ready for the coming weeks leading to the launch of the next gen iPhone.
Homie: “Hmmph. Nearly 8% market share, and climbing, and STILL no viruses. What does it take to get the attention of the malware community anyway?”
That’s also the premium top end 8% of active net users.
Basil Ganglia: “Apple’s growth appears to be linear (i.e., y = mx + b)”
It could very well be linear.. or exponential.. either way its the rate at which it climbs that matters more than the type of acceleration. Linear or exponential there’s a certain amount of available pool of buyers that’s finite. How fast Apple claims every available worthwhile purchaser (the profitable segment of the market) is what matters.
If Apple does get to 15% or 20% it will by definition be the top 15% or 20% of the market, and that means far more than 15% or 20% of people who pay for things. I’d say that the bottom 60% computer market barely pays for any software at all.
As always, this is good news, not only for Apple users, but also for windows users. The more variety on the market the better. As long as the companies involved are interested in interoperability in files, and they all can access an open internet.
Actually, what is more interesting in their data is that Google has a 78% marketshare in search engines.
Google is the next decades leader
The overwhelming number of Intel Macs vs. PowerPC’s is pretty telling of how recent a phenomenon this is.
5 years from now Macs will be used at home and some at work. Not many people will be using a Windoze machine at home.
Vista @ 15%???
How many hits were meaningful “visits”, versus bot-hits designed to skew OS-share counts?
How many of those hits came from inside MS? Or from corporate desktops (i.e. users browsing at work)?
Enquiring minds wanna know…