MacOS could drop below 6% market share this month | Hacker News Reader

MacOS could drop below 6% market share this month

netmarketshare.com

17 pointsgeospeck12 comments

from the "Can you explain the Net Market Share methodology for collecting data?" part of NetMarketShares FAQ[0]: "[...]43% are commerce sites [...]"

Could it just be that christmas shopping skews these statistics? Then again, statistics for the previous years don't seem to support this theory.

All in all this doesn't seem like information I would want to base any claims on.

[0] -> https://www.netmarketshare.com/faq.aspx#methodology

Just like Alexa Rank, can't take either serious.

April is 9.56%, so I shouldn't trust those stats a lot

Agreed. Netmarketshare's figures for all operating systems vary in unbelievable ways ... and April's 9.56% looks like one of those unbelievable variations. (The Mac share went up 2 points for no discernible reason, then came down 2 points over the next three months.)

It's not too far-fetched to believe that the Mac's share used to be roughly 7-8% and is now roughly 6-7%, which is as much as I'd take from Netmarketshare numbers.

However, that would be against the historic trend of the Mac's increasing market share, and I don't see any evidence for it in the marketplace. The people who were waiting for new Macs didn't stop using their old Macs.

Agreed, if more people are using Macs/Macbooks, it doesn't click.

For this, I always try to compare stats from three sites, because they all differ.

I wonder why they are not including Chrome OS?

Seconded. Their statistics without Chrome OS are of little interest, and a distortion of actual desktop trends.

Wouldn't the Linux column include Chrome OS:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_syste...

I don't think the Linux column includes Chrome OS. Chromebooks have recently outsold Macs. The Linux numbers couldn't be that small if Chromebooks are included.

Key word from title is desktop, although I presume that does include laptop, but not other mobile devices.

MacOS doesn't run on other mobile devices.

I'm not sure what higher-level point the GP was trying to make[1], but I'm fairly sure they knew macOS doesn't run on mobile. Their implication is that were mobile devices included in the tally they would have contributed significantly to the denominator.

[1] I suspect it is that macOS + iOS would be a better numerator to pit against "Windows on all devices". However the GP having corrected themselves immediately means its not clear what the point is.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com