Windows 7 Marketshare Jumps Past 3 Percent

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Windows 7 market share is slowly rising.

Windows 7 has officially been a part of the worldwide mass market for more than a week and a half and now makes up more than 3.6 percent of all PCs tracked by research firm Net Applications.

Net Applications tracks OS usage statistics through information reported by internet browser software. On October 21, the day before the official launch, Windows 7 usage was at 1.89 per cent, according to Channel Register. By launch day, the number hit 1.99 per cent, constantly rising to 3.67 percent it hit on November 1.

Throughout October,  various versions of Windows made up 92.52 percent of the browsing market, with Mac OS X taking 5.27 per cent, and Linux at 0.96 percent.

Despite the steadily growing Windows 7 share, Microsoft's OS as a whole have been falling as Windows had nearly 94 percent of the market in December 2008. Share of Mac OS X and mobile browsers appears to have modestly risen in its place.

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
41 Comments Comment from the forums
  • lashabane
    Linux only has 0.96% of the market share? I honestly thought there were more Linux users out there.
    Reply
  • kresso
    Hooray, Linux is almost 1%, that's me!
    Reply
  • doomtomb
    Only 3 percent of the market share? What about all the computers bought that have free Windows 7 upgrades.
    Reply
  • fooldog01
    lashabaneLinux only has 0.96% of the market share? I honestly thought there were more Linux users out there.
    All things considered, 1% is a pretty decent number of people. If 2 billion computers are being accounted for then that is 20 million people using Linux distros. Granted its a small share of the market but still a sizable group of people. What is more stunning to me is that Apple only has 5% compared to Linux's 1% and look at how ridiculously in your face Apple is with their advertising. I guess I thought MacOS was closer to 10% by now but it's probably just because I can't go 30 seconds watching TV without seeing one of those ridiculous Mac ads.
    Reply
  • False_Dmitry_II
    Also (I would hope) that people who get new comps with win7 on them dont just toss their old ones. Give them to relatives/friends as is or after (which I have done) putting linux on them.

    This would have the result of increasing the total number of computers being tracked, and thereby pushing the percentages.
    Reply
  • Caffeinecarl
    Give it a couple weeks and we'll be ahead of the Mac! Sorry, somebody had to say it.
    Reply
  • matt_b
    Yeah, but does this include the millions out there that bought a PC with the free Windows 7 upgrade or bought Vista with the sole intention of using the free upgrade to Windows 7 coupon? A lot less consumers have actually payed for this OS versus previous versions because so many had a free upgrade path or at least a dirt cheap opportunity to buy it for next to nothing. I would be really curious to see how much of Vista's market share shrank in comparison for the same time frame to better gauge this.
    Reply
  • PodSix
    I have to admit that for only possessing approx. 5 percent of the market share, Apple is quite good at making its presence known and making a lot of noise.
    Reply
  • glorfendel
    3% is damn good for less then 2 weeks it will fly up in the next few weeks as.
    1 All the free upgrades get to the users and they upgrade ( most users wont drop what they are doing to upgrade)
    2 Any it department\cio will hold of at least 30 days if not 90 before jumping in ( 30 for us to get the cost on this years accounting )
    3 Alot of users wont upgrade till they need a new computer or windows rot sets in.
    4 in some places getting a box copy is harder then you think.
    5 alot of IT will hold off untill 2008 r2 and exchange\sharepoint 2010 are out first half of next year.
    Reply
  • I don't really like that market push of Apple...
    I'm still staying with Windows, even if Apple would sell it's OS for free!
    Reply