Windows’ continuing loss of web share is primarily to the benefit of Mac OS X, though Linux and mobile platforms are also picking up share.

Almost 88 percent of web users use Windows, as measured by Net Applications, but it’s on a steady downward trend.

In April 2008, Windows’ share was 91.58 percent. By April 2009, that had fallen to 87.80 percent. Most of that loss has been Mac OS X’s gain – its share has risen from 7.38 to 9.73 percent over the same period, even though there was a drop of 0.04 percentage points from March to April.

Linux has done proportionately well off a small base, rising from 0.63 to 1.02 percent.

Changes in platform share are also reflected in the browser share figures.

Internet Explorer’s progressive slide continues: down to 66.10 percent from 73.01 percent a year ago. Half of that loss has been taken up by Firefox (up from 19.03 to 22.48 percent), with Safari also benefiting (up from 6.31 to 8.21 percent).

However, Apple’s browser has yet to return to the peak share of 8.29 percent recorded in January this year.

Google’s Chrome has consolidated its place as the fourth browser, rising from 1.23 percent in March to 1.42 percent in April.

Curiously, Netscape (or at least browsers masquerading as Netscape) showed an uptick in April – its 0.82 percent share pushing it ahead of Opera (0.68 percent) for the first time in over a year.

The iPhone and iPod touch have also shown strong growth, faster than Linux. The iPhone share went from 0.15 to 0.55 percent (a more than threefold gain), while iPod touch rose fivefold from 0.03 to 0.15 percent.

The dark horse is Java ME. Reflecting the growing use of mobile web access, its share has risen from 0.00 percent at the end of 2008 to 0.07 percent in April 2009.

If the breakdown is restricted to mobile platforms, the shares are (to the nearest whole number) iPhone/iPod touch 65 percent, Android 9 percent, Java ME 8 percent, Symbian 7 percent, Windows Mobile 6 percent, BlackBerry 3 percent, others 2 percent.

It must be stressed that Net Applications’ figures do not measure market share in the traditional sense of sales in a particular period, or how the installed base is divided between platforms.
Instead, the statistics reflect the systems and browsers being used to access the web sites operated by Net Applications’ clients. While it is not appropriate to read much into the absolute figures, the trends revealed do give some insight about changes in patterns of use.