Mac, Safari, Firefox shares all show growth
Time marches on. Babies are born, people die, taxes get paid and Microsoft’s Windows and Internet Explorer, once dominant and unassailable, just keep bleeding market share. Or, put another way, another month and more good news for the world outside of Redmond.
Recent quarters have seen declines in computer unit volumes, though Mac sales have generally held up better than Windows box units. The one glimmer in this otherwise dismal picture is netbooks, which have sold in great volume.
What books?
Nevertheless, one has to wonder whether or not netbooks have been misnamed. Net Applications operating system market share data has to date been unswayed by the netbook’s purported rise, which has seen the amount of Web traffic traceable to Windows boxes decline steadily for years.
OS X, Linux and Mobile OS X all have enjoyed equally steady rises, though each experiences month-to-month fluctuations — i.e., the April to May down tick in Linux share.
• Windows—87.75 percent (87.90 percent)
• Mac OS—9.81 (9.73)
• Linux—0.99 (1.02)
• iPhone—0.60 (0.55)
• iPod touch— 0.15 (0.15)See also:
— Mac stalls, Linux cracks 1%, iPhone continues rise
— Mac sales dip, Dell dives…
— Mac, iPhone, Linux shares all rise
Battered and nearly beaten?
Net Applications’ browser share statistics shows more of the same, with Microsoft bleeding share and everyone else benefiting from this. The fast mover in this group is Chrome, which as risen from zero to nearly 2 percent in less than a year.
01 Internet Explorer—65.50 (66.10 percent)
02 Firefox—22.51 (22.48)
03 Safari—8.43 (8.21)
04 Chrome—1.80 (1.42)
05 Netscape—0.74 (0.82)See also:
— Safari 4 beta leaves data, privacy trail in its wake
— iCab Mobile 1.5: The best iPhone, touch browser gets better
— You’ve gotta put Stainless on your list
Again, although Safari and Firefox experience month-to-month variations, the long-term trend is unmistakable—solid, continuous growth. Why, however, Netscape popped back in the browser Top 5 more than one year after active development ended is anyone’s guess.
Regarding Chrome, Google has said that the browser market will undergo a sea change as Internet Explorer’s share falls below 60 percent. That said, with IE rapidly closing on that perhaps fateful number, we should begin seeing a change in the way businesses, especially government, banks and other large institutions, code for the web.
Are any of you seeing evidence of the predicted tectonic shift?
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June 2nd, 2009
I’m surprised IE is still that high. Where’s Opera?
June 2nd, 2009
Opera is just behind Netscape at No 6.