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For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Mac share of surfers doubles in 8 months

Computerworld cites WebSideStory and Net Applications statistics and comes up with an interesting look at what is likely as close as we'll ever get to Mac usage share in the US:

The portion of people surfing the Web using a Mac has doubled in the past eight months, an Internet metrics analyst said today.

In the US.

"For the longest time, Mac hung around 3% of the operating systems using the Web. But it picked up around last summer, and has nearly doubled its market share."

Again, in the US.

Measurements from WebSideStory and rival Net Applications of Aliso Viejo, Calif., put Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X at close to or just over 6% of all machines in the U.S. that connected to the Web last month.

"For the first time since 1999, when we started tracking, the Mac has really made a major push," said Johnston. Since August, the percentage of online Macs running Apple's operating system has climbed from the long-flat 3% to 5.6%, he said. Net Applications data, which splits the Mac's share between computers running the PowerPC version of Mac OS and those with an Intel edition of the operating system, pegged the total share at 6.2% for April.

This seems believable to me. And to anyone that wants to latch onto this as usage share gospel--for the US--I'm with you. But you have to take the bad with the good. As noted above, Mac usage share never moved before this particular time period. I think that contradicts a lot of the assumptions people have made about Mac growth previously, but corresponds to what I've written about how massive quarterly growth doesn't equate to big market share gains.

In any event, it's no surprise that Macs sell better in the US than in the rest of the world: It is the richest nation on earth, after all. Still, this is good news.

Labels: Apple, Mac

[ Posted at 3:03 PM | Permalink ]