Net Applications has released its compiled browser use data for the month of April, and the news is pretty good for Apple. Despite an arguable small downtick in market share for the quarter as measured by unit sales, Net Applications shows the share of users using Safari or Mac OS X to surf the Web holding steady for the first month of this quarter. The iPhone OS platform continues to gain share online, while Windows and IE continue a slow but steady decline.
Net Applications recorded an 8.21 percent browser share for Safari for April, a hair lower than the 8.23 percent measured in March, but still higher than the 8.02 percent share from February. Both Firefox and Chrome saw upticks for the month, while Microsoft's browser saw a decline, even after the release of IE 8.
When measuring operating systems, Net Applications recorded a 9.73 percent share for Mac OS X—again, slightly lower than last month's 9.77 percent share. Apple has yet to officially crack the 10 percent mark on the desktop, and it may have to wait for the economy to recover some before that will happen. Linux gained a tenth of a percent, as did iPhone OS, which is in fourth place behind Linux (in third) by Net Applications' reckoning. Windows saw another decline, and has been steadily declining for the past year.Net Applications also noted that the iPod touch has grown much faster than the iPhone over the last year or so, even though the iPhone still enjoys a larger share of 'Net traffic. The iPod touch's share grew about 300 percent since May 2008, while the iPhone grew about 244 percent for the same period. Collectively, the iPhone OS platform grew 268 percent share over the last year.
While Net Applications uses a different methodology than the typical unit sales numbers gathered by Gartner and IDC, the trends in its data are useful to show what browsers and OSes are being used regularly online. (Net Applications gathers browser use information from its member sites.) The numbers aren't exactly great for Safari and Mac OS X this month, but they are a lot more encouraging given the state of the economy.
Further reading:
- Net Applications' market share data is compiled monthly on its website.
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