Windows 7 breaks 6% in global usage share

According to data collected by web metrics firm Net Applications, Windows 7's global usage share broke the 6% mark over the weekend.

Here's a snapshot of the data:

Click for larger image

Note: It's important to bear in mind that this data is based on visitors to sites monitored by Net Applications. It DOES NOT represent market share.

If you look at the chart above you'll see periodic shark fins rising out from the smooth upward trend. These blips represent data collected on Saturdays and Sundays and indicate that the Windows 7 OS is more popular home users than business.

It'll be interesting to see how this data changes over the holidays. We should see stronger Windows 7 usage towards the end of the month because more people will be at home on vacation. In the new year we should get an indication of how strong Windows 7 and Win 7 powered PCs has been during this holiday season.

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.