Net Applications is a web analytics firm. The company is commonly known in the web browser development and technology news communities for its global market share statistics.
<p>History
Since 1999, Net Applications is a source of applications for webmasters and eMarketers. Headquartered in Aliso Viejo, California, Net Applications distributes its services through over 7,000 partners and affiliates.
Net Applications is known for being a provider of usage share statistics for web browsers and operating systems. It provides these services through its product Market Share. The statistics are available on a month-to-month basis for free but they are also available down to hourly statistics as a paid service. The freely available statistics stretch back to November 2007 though their data stretches back to at least Q4 2004. In August 2009, Net Applications began weighting its raw data based on the number of internet users in the countries concerned, using data from the CIA; the changes were applied retroactively to older data. Net Applications measures browser usage by tracking the machines that visit the 40,000 sites it monitors for clients, which results in a pool of about 160 million unique visitors per month.
Criticism
While the statistics released by the company routinely place operating systems sold by Microsoft (Windows) and Apple (Mac OS X) with a high market share in the desktop computer category (through 2013), Vincent Vizzaccaro (EVP â€" Marketing and Strategic Alliances, Net Applications, 2002â€"present) has stated that Microsoft and Apple are among the company's clients. The company has also admitted that their statistics are skewed. These admissions and the fact the company doesn't make their data sources or processing methods public, has led some to criticize the company, questioning their impartiality and the reliability of their statistics.
See also
- Usage share of web browsers
- Usage share of operating systems
- Web browser
- Market share
- Browser wars
References
External links
- Official website
