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Mac market share continues to inch up

Though still far behind Windows, the Mac now owns 6.45 percent of the global market and 13.7 percent in the U.S., according to new stats from Net Applications.

Lance Whitney Contributing Writer
Lance Whitney is a freelance technology writer and trainer and a former IT professional. He's written for Time, CNET, PCMag, and several other publications. He's the author of two tech books--one on Windows and another on LinkedIn.
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Lance Whitney
2 min read

The Mac still owns a tiny market share compared with Windows, but it's one that's slowly been inching up.

In the U.S., Apple held 6.45 percent of all personal computers last month, according to new data from Net Applications, a gain from 6.03 percent from August. The growth from the prior month isn't a surprise, though, since Apple typically enjoys a boost in September thanks to what Net Applications calls "the Back-to-School Bump."

But the latest number also shows a slow but steady rise over the past couple of years from October of 2009 when Apple's share was 5.34 percent. The Mac's standing in the U.S. in particular has grown, hitting a 13.74 share in September, up from 13.26 percent in August.

Related stories:
• Analyst: Apple MacBook to make gains on PC
• Mac sales surge, PC sales stay steady
• Windows XP market share dips below 50 percent

Some analysts, such as Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Whitmore, have seen the Mac potentially grabbing some of the market share being lost by Windows PCs. Mac sales did experience a healthy surge of 26 percent in July thanks to the launch of OS X Lion and other new products, according to NPD. At the same time, PC sales stayed steady with only a 4 percent rise.

Of course, Windows is still by far the king of the desktop with a 92.4 percent share in September, a minor decline from 93.67 percent two years ago.

Drilling down to the different flavors of Windows, XP continues to be the dominant version with 50.5 percent of the market, leaving Windows 7 with 32.4 and Vista with 9 percent. But XP's lead has gradually been fading, dipping below 50 percent for the first time ever in July and then falling futher in August before inching up last month.