Windows 7 converging slowly on Windows XP
Microsoft Windows 7 has now taken 30 percent of the PC operating system market, but it's still a long way behind Windows XP's 52 percent, according to numbers published today on the Netmarketshare website. As the name implies, the market shares are calculated from website traffic, and thus may not precisely reflect the global installed base. However, they're a good indicator of trends.
During its steady growth over the past two years, Windows 7 has taken roughly 20 points of market share from XP and about 10 points from Windows Vista. Netmarketshare's graph (below) shows XP's share falling from 72.34 percent in September 2009 to 52.46 percent in August 2011. Over the same period, Vista's share has fallen from 18.83 percent to 9.04%, while Windows 7's share has grown from 1.53 percent to 30.60 percent.
The changeover looks remarkably steady: both XP and Vista are, so far, eroding, not collapsing.
Overall, Netmarketshare reckons Windows has 92.90 percent of the PC operating system market, while Mac OS X has 6.03 percent and Linux 1.07 percent. Windows appears to have dropped a whole percentage point since December 2008, when Netmarketshare had it at 93.90%. It is only 0.01 down on the 92.91 percent figure for December 2009.
Netmarketshare now gives the PC number separate from mobile phones and other devices so the numbers may not be exactly comparable. However, for all the fanboy blather, it's clear that -- on a global basis -- Windows' total dominance has not been seriously challenged.
PC browsers
In the web browser market, however, Microsoft's Internet Explorer has lost significant market share: it has fallen from 66.43 percent in September 2009 to 55.31 percent in August 2011. And it is Google's Chrome that has done the damage, growing from 3.20 percent to 15.51 percent over the same period. In sum, IE has dropped 11 points while Chrome has gained just over 12 points.
Most rival browsers have also suffered as Google has used its dominant web search home page, among other things, to advertise its browser. Firefox has lost market share, down from 24.03 percent to 22.57 percent. Opera, the most vociferous participant in the European Union's campaign against Microsoft, has seen its market share plunge from 2.19 percent to only 1.68 percent.
The market share of Apple's Safari has grown from 3.77 percent in September 2009 to 4.64 percent as Apple has sold more PCs running Mac OS X. However, it has never looked like fulfilling Steve Jobs's aim of wiping out Firefox and taking second place. Out of the four leading contenders, Safari is a very distant fourth.
Mobile/Tablet browsers
In the Mobile/Tablet category, of course, Safari is dominant, thanks to the huge success of both the iPhone and the iPad. Safari has increased its market share from 44.05 percent in September 2009 to 52.9 percent in August 2011 -- a share that's only just behind IE's in the PC market. Google's Android browser has done even better, growing from 2.39 percent to 15.73 percent over the same period. The big losers have been Opera (down from 31.31 percent to 20.77 percent) and Symbian (down from 11.51 percent to 6.83 percent. No surprises there.