Net Applications


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.

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.

Market share statistics

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 and Apple with a high market share in the desktop computer category, Vincent Vizzaccaro has stated that Microsoft and Apple are among the company's clients. The company has also admitted that their statistics are skewed.