November 2008: Apple Mac OS market share rises to 8.87% - up over 30% year over year

Dec
01

By: switchtoamac at: 9:37 AM on December 1, 2008 | Comments (0)

According to market research firm Net Applications, Apple's Mac OS market share rose to 8.87 percent during November 2008. These metrics detail the operating systems that visit sites tracked by Net Applications. Not only did the November increase reverse the decline observed in October but it also shows that Mac OS market share rose by over 30 percent on a year-over-year (YOY) basis. In November 2007 Mac OS market share stood at 6.80 percent, just a year later it checks in at more than two percentage points higher.

Key Percent Increases

Up 30.44 percent since November 2007
Up 17.17 percent since January 2008

The following is a view of Apple's Mac OS market share month by month for calender year 2008. The table tracks Mac OS market share for 2008 and 2007 and highlights the year-over-year (Y-O-Y) increase. In this scenario, year over year measures the percent change in Mac market share (based on Net Applications data) versus the same month in the 2007.

Year-Over-Year growth analysis
In our October and September analysis, we indicated that Mac OS market share growth was shown to slowing. During July - September, Mac operating system growth experienced three continuous months of year-over-year deceleration. That trend was reversed in October but only marginally. November's data shows a spike an a return to over 30 percent year-over-year growth. Net Applications provides a measure of installed base, rather than 'market share' in the classic sense. One can argue however that 'market share' is relevant in the Net Applications' pool of tracked sites. Regardless, the trend for Mac OS X is clearly demonstrated in the data, the Mac user base continues to rise.

About Market Share (by Net Applications)
Net Applications makes the following mention of their tracking methodology on their website:

"We use a unique methodology for collecting this data. We collect data from the browsers of site visitors to our exclusive on-demand network of live stats customers. The data is compiled from approximately 160 million visitors per month. 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."

You can learn about Net Applications here and see the full October 2008 report for multiple operating systems at the following link.