Mac OS X install base grows to over 6% worldwide, 13% in the US
The release of Mac OS X Lion has helped Apple grow its share of the PC install base to nearly 13.5% in the U.S. and more than 6% worldwide, according to new statistics.
The latest tracking data from NetMarketShare shows Mac OS X has been steadily climbing the global charts, seeing its share rise from 5.60% in May to 5.67% and 5.96%, in June and July, respectively. By the end of last month, it had reached 6.03% worldwide and 13.42% in the United States.
Meanwhile, combined versions of Microsoft Windows continued to lead the worldwide market with a 92.90% share at the end of August, as Linux made its way into third place with a 1.07% share.
Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, Apple?s latest desktop operating system that started selling on July 20, already accounts for 1.03% share of the overall market compared to 1.17% for Leopard and 3.46% for Snow Leopard. Those figures are based on a sample of 160 million internet visitors that Net Applications says it tracks. While Leopard and Snow Leopard's marketshare dropped from 1.24% and 4% as users upgraded to Lion, Mac OS X's combined share still rose from 5.96% on the sale of new Mac models.
Desktop operating system market share by platform, August 2011
Lion adoption has significantly improved when compared with the Snow Leopard upgrade, Apple?s previous major Mac OS release. The latter claimed just 0.78% share after its first month and passed 1% only during its second month of sales, despite being priced, like Lion, at $29.99.
Desktop operating system market share by version, August 2011
The phenomenon may be explained by the new distribution system that Apple implemented for Lion. The operating system has been sold exclusively through the Mac App Store, a move that may have convinced more customers to upgrade earlier, as compared to Snow Leopard, whose default distribution method was via physical DVDs.
Apple began selling $69 Mac OS X Lion USB Thumb Drives earlier this month to accommodate the needs of customers that don?t want to purchase the operating system straight from the digital store or download the large 3.49GB installation file over the Internet.
Mac OS market share worldwide
A day after its release, the company announced that sales of the software had topped one million, making it the most successful operating system launch in its history.
The latest tracking data from NetMarketShare shows Mac OS X has been steadily climbing the global charts, seeing its share rise from 5.60% in May to 5.67% and 5.96%, in June and July, respectively. By the end of last month, it had reached 6.03% worldwide and 13.42% in the United States.
Meanwhile, combined versions of Microsoft Windows continued to lead the worldwide market with a 92.90% share at the end of August, as Linux made its way into third place with a 1.07% share.
Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, Apple?s latest desktop operating system that started selling on July 20, already accounts for 1.03% share of the overall market compared to 1.17% for Leopard and 3.46% for Snow Leopard. Those figures are based on a sample of 160 million internet visitors that Net Applications says it tracks. While Leopard and Snow Leopard's marketshare dropped from 1.24% and 4% as users upgraded to Lion, Mac OS X's combined share still rose from 5.96% on the sale of new Mac models.
Desktop operating system market share by platform, August 2011
Lion adoption has significantly improved when compared with the Snow Leopard upgrade, Apple?s previous major Mac OS release. The latter claimed just 0.78% share after its first month and passed 1% only during its second month of sales, despite being priced, like Lion, at $29.99.
Desktop operating system market share by version, August 2011
The phenomenon may be explained by the new distribution system that Apple implemented for Lion. The operating system has been sold exclusively through the Mac App Store, a move that may have convinced more customers to upgrade earlier, as compared to Snow Leopard, whose default distribution method was via physical DVDs.
Apple began selling $69 Mac OS X Lion USB Thumb Drives earlier this month to accommodate the needs of customers that don?t want to purchase the operating system straight from the digital store or download the large 3.49GB installation file over the Internet.
Mac OS market share worldwide
A day after its release, the company announced that sales of the software had topped one million, making it the most successful operating system launch in its history.
Comments
It's highest in Switzerland, isn't it? Upwards of 15% there, I think.
Looks like 1.4% of Mac users still old systems, mostly G4s I guess.
The release of Mac OS X Lion has helped Apple grow its share of the PC install base to nearly 13.5% in the U.S. and more than 6% worldwide, according to new statistics.
That should be installed base. Google the two phrases and all the hits show the correct usage. Please, please do something about the general lack of professionalism on this site.
Please tell me this figure does NOT include iPads
Duh! Since Mac OS doesn't run on iOS devices how could it?
13 in the U.S. makes a lot of sense at this point, though I refuse to believe it's not higher than that.
It's highest in Switzerland, isn't it? Upwards of 15% there, I think.
I am surprised it not higher in the US. I think those numbers will change on the next reporting cycle.
Lion will push those numbers higher....
If I am reading this right, it means that the wide majority of iPhone and iPad users are still Windows users and not Mac owners.
I can't find the page but I seem to recall it was around 60 / 40 to the PC side for iPads.
Lots of room to grow, 60% is not unfeasible for consumer market share. Businesses will probably continue their snails pace move away from Windows.
I don't see how when you consider any percentage in Mac OS is also a percentage in Mac HW. Consider how many 'PCs' are sold per year, now consider if 6 out of 10 of them were Macs? How many units would Apple have to make per quarter? Can they handle that when you need HP, Dell abd Acer together to come close 60%?
I am surprised it not higher in the US. I think those numbers will change on the next reporting cycle.
Lion will push those numbers higher....
I'm sure if we look at consumer sales only, at college students, and non-bargain-basement 'PCs' it would be.
On the Linux issue, you'd think giving away an OS for free would significantly boost marketshare, but since all laptops pretty much come with Windows pre-installed, there's not much you can do. Maybe the Linux community should bite the bullet and buy HP. Then they'd have control on the hardware and every laptop would ship with Ubuntu. They probably can't afford HP, but if it happened, it would make things rather interesting.
MS wouldn't be overly concerned about Mac OS's growth, but they shouldn't be relaxed either. I mean even with their best os out, Windows 7, Apple still sees growth. And if Apple continues to see growth regardless of what MS's best engineers can do, eventually their marketshare will be problematic.
If I am reading this right, it means that the wide majority of iPhone and iPad users are still Windows users and not Mac owners.
Remember this is based on usage, i.e. users accessing websites that is contributing data to this tracking system.
Usage will be split between business and personal users. I would imagine personal users go to websites more often that business users. They may correct for that to get a more realistic spread of business and home installed PC.
Considering that businesses predominantly use Windows rather than Macs my guess it that the home installed base for Macs is significantly higher than 13% in the US.
What is fantastic to see is that marketshare worldwide is now 6%. That is double from just a few years ago. Even though Windows still commands a healthy share it is interesting that XP still accounts for more than 50%. Microsoft do not earn money from OSes bought 3-5 years ago so that must be hurting their bottom line.
No doubt. With only 92% of the market they should be in a total panic.
True... 92% seems like a formidable number but if that drops even 2% then that's an area of concern because it's 2% taken away from MS revenues... shareholders tend to like seeing numbers go up but not down... especially if it's shown that that 92% is part of a shrinking market (ie. even if MS stays at 92% but the global number of pc's drops then that's a problem).
The future, though, is mobile and right now MS has a real problem in that area.
It would be interesting to know how many people use each exclusively. There are surely people who only use Windows or OS X. How many people use Linux exclusively without any other OS? I doubt very many.
Are there any people here who have bought a Mac and still like Windows better? I've wondered about that for a while.
I don't see how when you consider any percentage in Mac OS is also a percentage in Mac HW. Consider how many 'PCs' are sold per year, now consider if 6 out of 10 of them were Macs? How many units would Apple have to make per quarter? Can they handle that when you need HP, Dell abd Acer together to come close 60%?
I'm sure if we look at consumer sales only, at college students, and non-bargain-basement 'PCs' it would be.
You have a good point. I wonder what the numbers are for operating systems by Consumer (home personal) Business (work professional). I would consider college student sales to be personal?
I wonder if based on hardware sales OSX versions would out sell all OSes for home/personal sales?
Most people are creatures of habit. This is shown by the number of people still using Windows XP that never upgraded. We can also see from the numbers that a great majority of IPHONE and IPAD users are also using Windows. This may change now that LION is available,however the majority will always stick to Windows as this is the system used by most in the workplace.
Some of that is true but also some user of XP are using older hardware that might not be able to run Win 7. But not sure if Lion will change Window users from using Windows to connect their iPhone or iPad. But the number of switchers is growing!
I don't know why, but I have this image in my mind of a rotund robot at MS headquarters exclaiming "DANGER, Steve Balmer, DANGER!"
Oh no. Steve Ballmer has an ace up his sweaty sleeve... he's going rip the keyboard off the PC laptop and add a touch screen, then reduce the battery life. It's called innovation. And all those people who switched to Mac? They'll come back to PC. Just you wait.
Oh no. Steve Ballmer has an ace up his sweaty sleeve... he's going rip the keyboard off the PC laptop and add a touch screen, then reduce the battery life. It's called innovation. And all those people who switched to Mac? They'll come back to PC. Just you wait.
I never "switched" -- I started on the Mac, my first computer was a Macintosh LC II, 16MHz 4MB RAM, 40MB Hard Drive, when I was 10 years old. Every computer I have owned was a Mac, I have only been exposed to Windows a few times, and that was on school computers, etc when we had to use it.