Analytics vendor Net Applications shows that Apple’s macOS powered “just 6.1% of all personal computers last month, down from 7% a year ago and a peak of 9.6% as recently as April 2016.”
Meanwhile, the Mac’s 6.1 percent user share in December clocked by Net Applications was the lowest since August 2011. Computerworld also makes this distinction: user share does not equal sales. It notes: “The former resembles the installed base more than anything — but Apple’s own data fits the view of a shrinking Mac. In October, the company reported sales of 4.9 million Macs for the September quarter.” This marks a 14 percent year-over-year decline and the fourth consecutive quarterly downturn.
Apple’s sales slump in the past year has been more pronounced than for the PC industry as a whole, according to prominent industry researchers like IDC and Gartner. That is a big change from many previous quarters, when the Mac growth rate consistently topped the industry average. Apple was also aided by the fact that for most of that time period, Microsoft was experiencing some difficulties establishing new operating systems such as Windows 8. They seem to have found more acceptance with Windows 10, which is good news for Redmond, but not for Cupertino.
CW reports that as the Mac slump became evident, rivals such as Windows and Linx were the beneficiaries, though of meager amounts, each picking up about half a percentage point in the last year. Linux is now up to a 2.2 percent user share according to Net Applications.
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