Chicago (IL) - Apple continues to successfully take over client operating system market share from Microsoft, at least if we believe the latest survey data released by Net Applications. Based on the data retrieved from the visitors to 40,000 websites, Apple is now estimated to hold more than 8% of the OS market, while Windows suffered a slight decline. Although Windows Vista is increasing its market share as more XP users upgrade to the newer software, Net Applications suggests that its gains are offset by the overall decrease of Windows’ market share.

It appears that Apple's Mac OS X operating system hit new record levels in September, crossing the 8% mark in Net Applications' market share estimate. Now at more than 8.2%, OS X showed a gain of almost 0.4 points within the last month. The OS X version used in the iPhone took a 0.3% share of the market, which is twice as much as in July when the iPhone 3G was released. Various flavors of Microsoft Windows dominate the data by a large margin with 90.29%. However, Windows market share declined by 0.4 points over August and dropped 1.5 points since the beginning of the year.

Vista's share of the market is increasing at the expense of Windows XP as users switch to the newer operating system. Vista took an 18.3% share in September, up nearly 0.5 points from a month ago. If the trend continues, Vista could hit the 20% milestone by the end of the year. Windows XP remains the most popular software with a 68.7% share in September, down almost 0.8 points in August.

The fact that XP lost more share than Vista gained indicates that Apple in fact may still be attracting significant numbers of Windows users. In fact the numbers for the Windows loss and the OS X gain are an exact match (0.37 points) in the Net Applications ranking.

It has to be noted, however, that OS X usage tends to show spikes in August because especially Apple seems to benefit from back-to-school sales. For example, OS X jumped 0.45 percentage points in the same period of time last year. Analysts believe that last month's back-to-school promotion, where Apple gave a free iPod touch to college students who purchased a Mac desktop or notebook, was particularly successful.

Linux slipped to 0.91% market share in September, down from 0.93% from a month ago. However, the OS is up almost 0.3 points from the beginning of this year.

Freebies

Oct 02, 2008 10:47     

"free iPod touch to college students" Nothing like paying way too much for a computer and a device. Obviously these students are a bunch of tards if they just buy it for the ipod touch. Don't forget for your chance to get cancer - free from your mac book pro.
Headward report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +4

=(

Oct 02, 2008 11:09     

i see so many macs on my campus its ridiculous. and they call themselves starving because they r forced to eat ramen noodles. maybe they'd have moe money for HungyrMan dinners if they wouldn't buy their laptops with a $1000 apple tax.
Lester report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +3

lets just not look at percentage but real number.

Oct 02, 2008 11:16     

I think both windows and os/x grows.. just that apple grows faster...so percentage wise they are increasing. Just looking at percentage is missleading. There is still more and more people using windows..not that it's decreasing. Just grow slower. It's different from what this article is applying that apples is taking over window's business.
andy report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -1

GO LINUX

Oct 02, 2008 12:03     

GO LINUX
mr.x report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

Linux dropped? Really?...

Oct 02, 2008 12:06     

I find it hard to believe Linux dropped in market share. I have found more and more people who are trying it out since the Vista debacle. A lot of these people hate Macs and just wanted to try something different than Windows, and they just couldn't beat free. Some of them didn't hate Macs, but wanted to try something similar for free. And what about all the nettops that are running Linux? These systems never existed before and are picking up in popularity very quickly. I'm calling shenanigans on this report.

Nick B. report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

So if I use VMware?

Oct 02, 2008 12:28     

If use VMWare to run Ubuntu on top of a Windows host, or Parallels to run windows on top of a mac, how do those add up?
Jim L report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

Zzzzzzzz....

Oct 02, 2008 13:39     

Wake me if Apple get's 15%. If they do it with a hardware tied OS i'll be impressed.
Action Jackson report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Market share

Oct 02, 2008 16:00     

Every time they publish this, I remind them that this is not market share. It may be related to web usage share (if their sampling is good), but it is NOT market share. I guess they don't care about accurate reporting since they keep ignoring the correction.
Joe Anonymous report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +2

Can't help but notice

Oct 02, 2008 18:50     

Every time an Apple story is posted, out come the haters. Like wise when someone mentions Linux - boom, instant vote down on the post. Anyone remember when TGDaily readers weren't so pro-windows? Or is everyone using BSD (*laughs to self*).
hank report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -1

How can the iPhone have %0.3 of the market ...

Oct 02, 2008 20:49     

... when Symbian has a market share of almost 58% worldwide, but trails lower than Apple? It's very simple really. The net applications "market share" data is North American centric, so this figures only represent a sample of Net Applications client website mainly from the United States.
MisterMeister report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +2

Hackintoshes

Oct 02, 2008 23:10     

I have a question. With the 8% hits, does it include hackintoshes in the count?
togoink report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

Who need Linux anyway?

Oct 03, 2008 02:52     

Mac is better. I've tried many Linux distros and they were equally dissappointing so I settled on Mac and never looked back.
Macmies report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -9

Thank you Macmies

Oct 03, 2008 08:13     

Thanks Macmies for sharing us your wisdom and ultimate truth. I thought that OS choice depends of your needs but it seems I was wrong!
Yeahyeah... report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1