Windows 7’s weekly share of the US market went from 1.75pc prelaunch to 2.82pc by the end of October, according to StatCounter, which says globally the new operating system achieved the same levels.
“Windows 7 has hit the ground running and the underlying trend is positive for Microsoft,” commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter.
“The new operating system should be further boosted by December holiday season sales of computers which will have Windows 7 pre-installed.”
He added that, as expected, it looks as if Windows 7 is taking market share from Vista and to a lesser extent, XP.
“In the US, Vista has declined from 35.78pc to 34.52pc at the end of October. XP has seen a smaller fall from 48.92pc to 48.47pc.”
He added that one factor is clear from the analysis. “Apple Mac fans remain unimpressed by the global launch hype. Mac OS X grew over the same period in the US from 11.29pc to 11.87pc.”
Data is based on an analysis of 4.7 billion page views (1.1 billion from the US), which were collected during the three-week period of 12 October-1 November, 2009, from the StatCounter network of more than 3 million websites.
StatCounter, which provides free website traffic analysis, is one of the largest web analytics firms in the world monitoring in excess of 10 billion pageloads per month.
By John Kennedy
