Interesting bits from Net Application's market share report

In the system market share report, MacIntel result for December was 7.19 percent, a 79 percent gain from a year ago. The Windows Vista share was 21.12 percent, almost double the figure from a year ago. Still, 65 percent of PC users are running Windows XP.

I was surprised by the slight gains in Mac OS systems in the report, which represents older PowerPC-based Macs. The figures gradually declined for most of the year through October, however starting in November, its share ticked upwards.

I take this to mean that with the problems in the economy, older PowerPC Macs are being passed around families and communities and are now showing up in the online stats.

Both Apple Safari and Google's Chrome browsers showed gains, 7.93 and 1.04 percent, respectively.  Here's a graph that shows the iPhone G3 introduction bump as well as the continuing climb in the fall.

However, according to a note from Net Applications, the December numbers are influenced by the holiday season:

The December holiday season strongly favored residential over business usage. This in turn increases the relative usage share of Mac, Firefox, Safari and other products that have relatively high residential usage.