NetApplications shows Mac, iOS, IE9 gains in April

Apple made one of its best strides in recent memory for market share on the web last month, NetApplications determined on Sunday. The Mac reached a new adjusted high of 5.4 percent market share, but its gains were small relative to iOS. Led mostly by the iPhone, Apple's combined mobile platform jumped 16.5 percent and staked out 2.24 percent of all web traffic.

Windows continued its decline and hit another relative low at 88.91 percent, hurt almost exclusively by the gains in Mac and iOS share. Android's gains weren't tracked, but it marked 0.66 percent share, or less than a third.

Internet Explorer 9 was still a strong point for Microsoft. The browser more than doubled its share from March to stand as 7.46 percent of all Windows browsers. None of the gain was helping Microsoft as a whole; Internet Explorer dropped down to 55.11 percent.

Unusually, most of the gains came from Apple's Safari, whose more than half a point rise put it at a record 7.15 percent. Chrome gained as well but noticeably more slowly, at about a third of a point to 11.94 percent. Firefox declined slightly to 21.63 percent.

NetApplications didn't try to directly explain Apple's gains. The combination of sustained Verizon iPhone sales as well as the iPad 2 would have helped iOS. IE9's gains were more directly attributed to rapid adoption of Windows 7 and the deliberate optimization for its latest OS.

iOS web share trend



OS web market share



Browser share

By Electronista Staff