Mac sees fall in usage share, Windows sees rise

Given the amount of both real and virtual ink consumed on Mac-related topics, it's hard to imagine a situation where Apple's OS doesn't see continuous growth in usage share. But data released by web metrics firm Net Applications suggests that the Cupertino giant's usage share has suffered the largest slip since October 2009.

For the month of February, the Mac OS X usage share has dropped 0.14% to 5.02%, the lowest usage share level for the OS since August 2009, and the biggest slip in usage share since October 2009.

Also significant for February was the fact that Microsoft managed to turn around the slow, steady decline in Windows usage share. For the first time since August 2009, Microsoft has actually gained ground, up 0.12% on January to 92.12%.

This increase in Windows usage share is driven by Windows 7, which saw a month-on-month increase in of 1.35% to 8.92%. During the same period XP usage share fell 0.66% to 65.49% and Vista fell 0.96% to 16.51%.

Net Applications measures operating system usage by tracking computers that visit the 40,000 sites monitored for clients, which represents a pool of about 160 million unique visitors each month. This data is then weighted based on the estimated size of each country’s Internet population.