Guys, guys, guys! Everybody here is missing the point. Although, doh123, you got close!
Yes they(Net Applications) call it market share but it is really usage share. More accurately it's the OS share of visitors to all the sites using their statistics software.
The REAL POINT IS that their own stats tell a completely different story than their own newsletter.
These are the monthly Mac "market share" figures from Net Applications stats curtesy of www.switchtoamac.com
WHY DID NET APPLICATIONS base their newsletter on comparing the Aug 06 Mac share to the Dec 05 Mac share?
It's the only month from the previous year that (for one reason or another) had a higher figure. They could have chosen any OTHER month (How about Aug 05 for example!) and the headline would have been:
"Mac market share continues to rise"
Here are the ANNUAL Mac share figures. Also taken from the same source. marketshare.hitslink.com
Mac OS (PowerPC, Intel)
2004 - 3.25%
2005 - 3.64%
2006 - 4.34%
There is nothing inherently wrong with their figures.
The real point is why Net Applications should send out a newsletter (which has been syndicated all over the web) falsely claiming that Mac market/usage/whatever is DECLINING when their very own figures show the opposite.
This is FUD of the highest order. And the real problem is that to most people (even reporters who are repeating the story worldwide), who are not going to check the stats ....this will be perceived to be the truth.
Guys, guys, guys! Everybody here is missing the point. Although, doh123, you got close!
Yes they(Net Applications) call it market share but it is really usage share. More accurately it's the OS share of visitors to all the sites using their statistics software.
The REAL POINT IS that their own stats tell a completely different story than their own newsletter.
WHY DID NET APPLICATIONS base their newsletter on comparing the Aug 06 Mac share to the Dec 05 Mac share?
It's the only month from the previous year that (for one reason or another) had a higher figure. They could have chosen any OTHER month (How about Aug 05 for example!) and the headline would have been:
Mac OS (PowerPC, Intel)
2004 - 3.25%
2005 - 3.64%
2006 - 4.34%
There is nothing inherently wrong with their figures.
The real point is why Net Applications should send out a newsletter (which has been syndicated all over the web) falsely claiming that Mac market/usage/whatever is DECLINING when their very own figures show the opposite.
This is FUD of the highest order. And the real problem is that to most people (even reporters who are repeating the story worldwide), who are not going to check the stats ....this will be perceived to be the truth.
They could have chose April of '06, and stated that there has been a decline this year since then.
Guys, guys, guys! Everybody here is missing the point. Although, doh123, you got close!
Yes they(Net Applications) call it market share but it is really usage share. More accurately it's the OS share of visitors to all the sites using their statistics software.
The REAL POINT IS that their own stats tell a completely different story than their own newsletter.
These are the monthly Mac "market share" figures from Net Applications stats curtesy of www.switchtoamac.com
WHY DID NET APPLICATIONS base their newsletter on comparing the Aug 06 Mac share to the Dec 05 Mac share?
It's the only month from the previous year that (for one reason or another) had a higher figure. They could have chosen any OTHER month (How about Aug 05 for example!) and the headline would have been:
"Mac market share continues to rise"
Here are the ANNUAL Mac share figures. Also taken from the same source. marketshare.hitslink.com
Mac OS (PowerPC, Intel)
2004 - 3.25%
2005 - 3.64%
2006 - 4.34%
There is nothing inherently wrong with their figures.
The real point is why Net Applications should send out a newsletter (which has been syndicated all over the web) falsely claiming that Mac market/usage/whatever is DECLINING when their very own figures show the opposite.
This is FUD of the highest order. And the real problem is that to most people (even reporters who are repeating the story worldwide), who are not going to check the stats ....this will be perceived to be the truth.
Which market does this information refer to? Is it global market share? Or a regional or localized market share? That's another way stats like these can be misleading... ie., which sites do they monitor for research (english-speaking studies generally don't have the ability to work with Cantonese, Russian sites, etc...) Basically, statistics can be used and abused in a lot of ways. The vast majority of the world still does not have internet access from home, even though they might have a home computer as well, so that also furthur skews this sort of result.
The statistics for search engines include both organic and sponsored referrals. The websites in our population represent dozens of countries in regions including North America, South America, Western Europe, Australia / Pacific Rim and Parts of Asia.
The data is made available free of charge on a monthly basis that includes monthly browser market share trends, top search engine referrals, and operating systems trends.
Additional estimates about the website population:
76% participate in pay per click programs to drive traffic to their sites.
43% are commerce sites
18% are corporate sites
10% are content sites
29% classify themselves as other (includes gov, org, search engine marketers etc..)
So you can see that this is in no way a global market share analysis, as it doesn't include Eastern Europe, and only includes "parts of asia", and it's unspecified which parts they did sample. They furthurmore don't give a breakdown for the percentage used from each region.
Also, you can see from the percentage breakdown of types of sites that the majority of the sites sampled are "pay-per-click" sites, and theres mention of "sponsored referrals" being involved, so it may just be a great sampling of porn, dating services, online medication websites, etc. We have no idea. The website doesn't disclose a list or sample of the websites it monitors, so we have no idea here what these statistics actually mean. It's basically useless information other than giving us all something to argue about.
By the way, have you seen the website? It's pretty cheap ass, and has an online vote for "Which Browser is Better" sponsored by "SurveyWare". Sounds like another great source for statistical analysis!!!
Which market does this information refer to? Is it global market share? Or a regional or localized market share? That's another way stats like these can be misleading... ie., which sites do they monitor for research (english-speaking studies generally don't have the ability to work with Cantonese, Russian sites, etc...) Basically, statistics can be used and abused in a lot of ways. The vast majority of the world still does not have internet access from home, even though they might have a home computer as well, so that also furthur skews this sort of result.
Yes I see your point. It's even more misleading when the marketing group states that 'market share' is decling when the data suggest it is increasing. That's the point that PIOT was making.
They could have chose April of '06, and stated that there has been a decline this year since then.
Pick your stats.
Indeed you are correct. There are 4 months (in the chart above), prior to August 2006 that show the Mac "share" as higher than that August figure. However that leaves another 15 months with figures that completely reverse the story.
I am sorry but you cannot base a newsletter story about "declining Mac usage" using language like "this year's stagnation...." and ".... may be indicative of larger Apple problems" by comparing one 30 day period (of internet usage stats) to another previous 30 day period that just happened to be higher.
You have to show some kind of trend. And I think the coloured table (above) demonstrates very clearly that the trend is up. How can they possibly say that "Mac usage was steadily growing until this year's stagnation" when their own figures show that the % of people visiting their sites and using the Mac OS has risen (year on year) by a factor of 25% ??
"Windows XP usage is growing quickly, and currently has 84.18 percent usage market share, but overall Windows OS usage (in all it's different guises) is slightly down," Net Applications wrote in a recent newsletter. "Back in December 2005 total Windows OS usage market share was 95.23 percent, but August 2006 numbers show total Windows OS market share down to 95.11 percent."
Net Applications speculates that while the slight dip may not seem to be a cause for concern to most observers, "the fact that Windows usage was steadily dropping anyways is indicative of larger Microsoft problems that we have known about for ages."
"Hey Chuck, that's a pretty damn boring story for this weeks Newsletter. Can't you find a different angle?"
" Well ........ let me just have another look at those figures ......"
Stats curtesy of Net Applications.
Please note. Year on Year increase figures for the first 8 months of 2006 are all prefixed by a minus symbol.
"Windows XP usage is growing quickly, and currently has 84.18 percent usage market share, but overall Windows OS usage (in all it's different guises) is slightly down," Net Applications wrote in a recent newsletter. "Back in December 2005 total Windows OS usage market share was 95.23 percent, but August 2006 numbers show total Windows OS market share down to 95.11 percent."
Net Applications speculates that while the slight dip may not seem to be a cause for concern to most observers, "the fact that Windows usage was steadily dropping anyways is indicative of larger Microsoft problems that we have known about for ages."
"Hey Chuck, that's a pretty damn boring story for this weeks Newsletter. Can't you find a different angle?"
" Well ........ let me just have another look at those figures ......"
Stats curtesy of Net Applications.
Please note. Year on Year increase figures for the first 8 months of 2006 are all prefixed by a minus symbol.
Doesn't it look as though these numbers track the ones for OS X usage? One is up, the other is down.
Comments
Yes they(Net Applications) call it market share but it is really usage share. More accurately it's the OS share of visitors to all the sites using their statistics software.
The REAL POINT IS that their own stats tell a completely different story than their own newsletter.
These are the monthly Mac "market share" figures from Net Applications stats curtesy of www.switchtoamac.com
WHY DID NET APPLICATIONS base their newsletter on comparing the Aug 06 Mac share to the Dec 05 Mac share?
It's the only month from the previous year that (for one reason or another) had a higher figure. They could have chosen any OTHER month (How about Aug 05 for example!) and the headline would have been:
"Mac market share continues to rise"
Here are the ANNUAL Mac share figures. Also taken from the same source. marketshare.hitslink.com
Mac OS (PowerPC, Intel)
2004 - 3.25%
2005 - 3.64%
2006 - 4.34%
There is nothing inherently wrong with their figures.
The real point is why Net Applications should send out a newsletter (which has been syndicated all over the web) falsely claiming that Mac market/usage/whatever is DECLINING when their very own figures show the opposite.
This is FUD of the highest order. And the real problem is that to most people (even reporters who are repeating the story worldwide), who are not going to check the stats ....this will be perceived to be the truth.
Guys, guys, guys! Everybody here is missing the point. Although, doh123, you got close!
Yes they(Net Applications) call it market share but it is really usage share. More accurately it's the OS share of visitors to all the sites using their statistics software.
The REAL POINT IS that their own stats tell a completely different story than their own newsletter.
WHY DID NET APPLICATIONS base their newsletter on comparing the Aug 06 Mac share to the Dec 05 Mac share?
It's the only month from the previous year that (for one reason or another) had a higher figure. They could have chosen any OTHER month (How about Aug 05 for example!) and the headline would have been:
Mac OS (PowerPC, Intel)
2004 - 3.25%
2005 - 3.64%
2006 - 4.34%
There is nothing inherently wrong with their figures.
The real point is why Net Applications should send out a newsletter (which has been syndicated all over the web) falsely claiming that Mac market/usage/whatever is DECLINING when their very own figures show the opposite.
This is FUD of the highest order. And the real problem is that to most people (even reporters who are repeating the story worldwide), who are not going to check the stats ....this will be perceived to be the truth.
They could have chose April of '06, and stated that there has been a decline this year since then.
Pick your stats.
Guys, guys, guys! Everybody here is missing the point. Although, doh123, you got close!
Yes they(Net Applications) call it market share but it is really usage share. More accurately it's the OS share of visitors to all the sites using their statistics software.
The REAL POINT IS that their own stats tell a completely different story than their own newsletter.
These are the monthly Mac "market share" figures from Net Applications stats curtesy of www.switchtoamac.com
WHY DID NET APPLICATIONS base their newsletter on comparing the Aug 06 Mac share to the Dec 05 Mac share?
It's the only month from the previous year that (for one reason or another) had a higher figure. They could have chosen any OTHER month (How about Aug 05 for example!) and the headline would have been:
"Mac market share continues to rise"
Here are the ANNUAL Mac share figures. Also taken from the same source. marketshare.hitslink.com
Mac OS (PowerPC, Intel)
2004 - 3.25%
2005 - 3.64%
2006 - 4.34%
There is nothing inherently wrong with their figures.
The real point is why Net Applications should send out a newsletter (which has been syndicated all over the web) falsely claiming that Mac market/usage/whatever is DECLINING when their very own figures show the opposite.
This is FUD of the highest order. And the real problem is that to most people (even reporters who are repeating the story worldwide), who are not going to check the stats ....this will be perceived to be the truth.
Nice work. I think we have a new winner.
Nice work. I think we have a new winner.
Which market does this information refer to? Is it global market share? Or a regional or localized market share? That's another way stats like these can be misleading... ie., which sites do they monitor for research (english-speaking studies generally don't have the ability to work with Cantonese, Russian sites, etc...) Basically, statistics can be used and abused in a lot of ways. The vast majority of the world still does not have internet access from home, even though they might have a home computer as well, so that also furthur skews this sort of result.
The statistics for search engines include both organic and sponsored referrals. The websites in our population represent dozens of countries in regions including North America, South America, Western Europe, Australia / Pacific Rim and Parts of Asia.
The data is made available free of charge on a monthly basis that includes monthly browser market share trends, top search engine referrals, and operating systems trends.
Additional estimates about the website population:
76% participate in pay per click programs to drive traffic to their sites.
43% are commerce sites
18% are corporate sites
10% are content sites
29% classify themselves as other (includes gov, org, search engine marketers etc..)
So you can see that this is in no way a global market share analysis, as it doesn't include Eastern Europe, and only includes "parts of asia", and it's unspecified which parts they did sample. They furthurmore don't give a breakdown for the percentage used from each region.
Also, you can see from the percentage breakdown of types of sites that the majority of the sites sampled are "pay-per-click" sites, and theres mention of "sponsored referrals" being involved, so it may just be a great sampling of porn, dating services, online medication websites, etc. We have no idea. The website doesn't disclose a list or sample of the websites it monitors, so we have no idea here what these statistics actually mean. It's basically useless information other than giving us all something to argue about.
By the way, have you seen the website? It's pretty cheap ass, and has an online vote for "Which Browser is Better" sponsored by "SurveyWare". Sounds like another great source for statistical analysis!!!
Which market does this information refer to? Is it global market share? Or a regional or localized market share? That's another way stats like these can be misleading... ie., which sites do they monitor for research (english-speaking studies generally don't have the ability to work with Cantonese, Russian sites, etc...) Basically, statistics can be used and abused in a lot of ways. The vast majority of the world still does not have internet access from home, even though they might have a home computer as well, so that also furthur skews this sort of result.
Yes I see your point. It's even more misleading when the marketing group states that 'market share' is decling when the data suggest it is increasing. That's the point that PIOT was making.
They could have chose April of '06, and stated that there has been a decline this year since then.
Pick your stats.
Indeed you are correct. There are 4 months (in the chart above), prior to August 2006 that show the Mac "share" as higher than that August figure. However that leaves another 15 months with figures that completely reverse the story.
I am sorry but you cannot base a newsletter story about "declining Mac usage" using language like "this year's stagnation...." and ".... may be indicative of larger Apple problems" by comparing one 30 day period (of internet usage stats) to another previous 30 day period that just happened to be higher.
You have to show some kind of trend. And I think the coloured table (above) demonstrates very clearly that the trend is up. How can they possibly say that "Mac usage was steadily growing until this year's stagnation" when their own figures show that the % of people visiting their sites and using the Mac OS has risen (year on year) by a factor of 25% ??
"Windows XP usage is growing quickly, and currently has 84.18 percent usage market share, but overall Windows OS usage (in all it's different guises) is slightly down," Net Applications wrote in a recent newsletter. "Back in December 2005 total Windows OS usage market share was 95.23 percent, but August 2006 numbers show total Windows OS market share down to 95.11 percent."
Net Applications speculates that while the slight dip may not seem to be a cause for concern to most observers, "the fact that Windows usage was steadily dropping anyways is indicative of larger Microsoft problems that we have known about for ages."
"Hey Chuck, that's a pretty damn boring story for this weeks Newsletter. Can't you find a different angle?"
" Well ........ let me just have another look at those figures ......"
Stats curtesy of Net Applications.
Please note. Year on Year increase figures for the first 8 months of 2006 are all prefixed by a minus symbol.
Alternative scenario ............
"Windows XP usage is growing quickly, and currently has 84.18 percent usage market share, but overall Windows OS usage (in all it's different guises) is slightly down," Net Applications wrote in a recent newsletter. "Back in December 2005 total Windows OS usage market share was 95.23 percent, but August 2006 numbers show total Windows OS market share down to 95.11 percent."
Net Applications speculates that while the slight dip may not seem to be a cause for concern to most observers, "the fact that Windows usage was steadily dropping anyways is indicative of larger Microsoft problems that we have known about for ages."
"Hey Chuck, that's a pretty damn boring story for this weeks Newsletter. Can't you find a different angle?"
" Well ........ let me just have another look at those figures ......"
Stats curtesy of Net Applications.
Please note. Year on Year increase figures for the first 8 months of 2006 are all prefixed by a minus symbol.
Doesn't it look as though these numbers track the ones for OS X usage? One is up, the other is down.
Doesn't it look as though these numbers track the ones for OS X usage? One is up, the other is down.
Sorry Melgross...... what do you mean?
Sorry Melgross...... what do you mean?
Look at the months, one by one, for both OS's. As Windows went down X went up, and visa versa. Not exactly, every month, but as a trend.
http://switchtoamac.com/site/apples-...over-year.html
Here's another take. Inspired by these figures.
http://switchtoamac.com/site/apples-...over-year.html
Scroll up to piot's post.
Another big rise in the December figures.
And .... what goes up ..... must go down.
Happy New Year to all.
Scroll up to piot's post.
To which one?
Thought it would be a good time to catch up on the Mac market/usage share for 2006 ..... as measured by Net Applications. http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=2
Another big rise in the December figures.
And .... what goes up ..... must go down.
Happy New Year to all.
Right. That seems to follow what I was saying.