Apple has quietly been growing market share in the “desktop” OS category in the last few years. Here at Dented Universe, we admit not really paying much attention to this. However, we recently went down a rabbit hole leading to the some stat counter data. Note the the “Desktop” category does include laptops.
As long time Mac users and Apple followers, we could not believe this data. The Apple and Windows market share lines might actually cross in the next few years. For those of us who lived through the “beleaguered computer maker” years of Apple, the possibility of these lines crossing is shocking.
The massive success of the iPhone and other Apple products tends to overshadow the Mac. But the Mac was the product that kept Apple going for many years, and is the basis of everything that followed.
Apple has kept pushing out great Macs, and the market has finally, slowly, noticed.
Some notes:
- yes, as recently as 2009, Apple had only a 7% market share in the US, and it was lower world wide
- obviously, the “Other” category is also pulling down the Windows market share, so it is not only Apple growing
- the pandemic years did accelerate this trend, but the overall momentum is still strong
- the last line of data (rounded) reads:
Windows Mac Linux Chrome OS Unknown Other
53% 31% 2% 8% 5% 0.03% - StatCounter.com gets from web analytics, which can account for why there is a fairly large “unknown” amount. This could be Windows machines with hidden browser attributes, etc.
- unclear what the “Other” spike is in 2018-19 again here is the data
- Windows Mac Linux Chrome OS Unknown Other
64% 19% 1.5% 5% 11% 0.01% - between 2010 and 2012 StatCounter was including iOS in this data, presumably from iPads. It rose up over 4% in July 2012 before it was no longer tracked in this data set. In the chart above iOS was included in “Other”, and you can see the saw tooth drop in 2012 from the inclusion and then drop of iOS
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