Critical.
Authoritative.
Strategic.
Subscribe to CIO Magazine »

Apple browsing share tops Linux, Android steals share

Apple scores a first: More people browsed the Net last month with its mobile operating system than used Linux to do so.

More people browsed the Internet last month with a device running Apple's mobile operating system, iOS, than used Linux to do so. That's a first for Apple, according to NetMarketShare, a firm that produces metrics on the market share of browsers, operating systems and search engines.

However, the market figures do represent a new way that NetMarketshare has adopted to calculate market share for Apple. "In order to more accurately describe usage share for Apple devices, the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad are now being grouped under their common operating system iOS," the firm explained.

"When these devices are combined, they have over one percent of global browsing share, which is now higher than Linux," it said.

Information at the research firm's website shows iOS steadily gaining browser market share since October 2009, when its share was 0.44 percent, to last month, when its share was 1.13 percent. Linux's share, on the other hand, reached its lowest point over the same period, 0.85 percent.

Although devices running Google's operating system, Android, remain well behind iOS with a 0.20 percent share, they continue to show impressive growth in mobile web consumption. "Android continues to put in a powerful performance as measured by the share of mobile web consumption attributable to devices running Google's operating system," reports Quantcast, which analyzes online audiences for marketers.

"In August," it added, "Android took share from every corner of the market, putting in its best month share gain since November 2009."

Since May 2009, information at the company's website shows iOS's share of mobile web consumption, which is now 56 percent, trending down, while Android's share, now at 25 percent, continues to rise.

With sales of Android phones surpassing the iPhone and tablet computers using the OS beginning to enter the market, Google's market will no doubt continue to rise. While there may be some satisfaction in leaping over Linux in global browsing market share, Apple should heed Satchel Paige's memorable warning: "Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you."

Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.

More about: Apple, Apple., Google, Linux
References show all

Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Users posting comments agree to the CIO comments policy.
Login or register to link comments to your user profile, or you may also post a comment without being logged in.
Related Coverage
Related Whitepapers
Latest Stories
Community Comments
Tags: Apple, Google, Linux, non-Windows, operating systems, Tech industry
Latest Blog Posts
Whitepapers
  • Consolidation Without Compromise
    Virtualisation of computer, storage and infrastructure is enabling the transformation of enterprise datacentres into private clouds. The impact is an unprecedented ability to consolidate infrastructure without compromise: no change to service level agreements (SLAs), no loss of performance or scale, and no regression in the organisation’s overall security posture. Read on.
    Learn more »
  • Case Study - TNT Express successfully reduces their paper usage and costs using a new document solution
    in 2009 TNT decided to evaluate the market for new head office multifunction devices (MFD) as their current MFD fleet was almost seven years old. The objective was to reduce the number of devices and improve productivity, meet TNT’s future technical requirements and reduce the total cost of ownership of the equipment. They were also looking for a provider who would provide cost and service reporting as well as help streamline their electronic archiving requirements via the scanning of dockets and documents. Read on.
    Learn more »
  • IBM zEnterprise System Brings Hybrid Computing Capabilities to Midsize Organisations
    This paper focuses on the IBM z114 cross-tier solution, which brings IBM AIX Unix and Linux workloads into the mix, with Microsoft Windows support to follow in the future. This blended approach to computing allows workloads running on any of those operating systems to communicate more quickly and effectively with the System z, producing business benefits from the orchestration, or coordination, of management for all of the workloads running across all of the linked platforms.
    Learn more »
All whitepapers
rhs_login_lockGet exclusive access to Invitation only events CIO, reports & analysis.
Recent comments