Early, raw data says Windows 8 has 1% of desktop market, all but zero tablet market share

The data in this post is fresh, raw, possibly in flux*, and interesting. If you can put on your big kid pants and read on with that knowledge, let’s have some fun.

According to new data from NetApplications, for the week of November 11th, here are the following market share percentages of the Windows brand in the global market:

• Windows 7: 45.47%
• Windows XP: 39.58%
• Windows Vista: 5.42%
• Windows 8: 1.04%

For comparison, the same data pegs Linux at just above Windows 8, with some 1.4%. That should provide you with a bit of context. Underneath all of this is but a single data point: Microsoft claimed to sell 4 million copies of Windows 8 in the first 3 days of its formal launch.

The issue with that data was that it included copies sold preemptively to retailers, along with copies of the code sold to consumers. Put another way Microsoft managed to obfuscuate the data in such a way that it is all but impossible to tell how the damn operating system is doing.

We have, however, two more rather scurrrilous points of information from NetApplications:

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• Windows 8 Touch: 0.02%
• Windows 8 RT Touch: 0.00%

Note: As Windows 8 RT Touch is ranked above Windows ME, it is likely that its market share simply didn’t manage to round up to 0.01%. So while it appears to be at zero, it is perhaps not at utterly nil; the Surface would explain for that squinch of market share.

The best metric to take from all of this is that Windows 8 is already polling at 19.19% of Vista’s market share. For other comparison, at the very end of October, Windows 8 controlled less than 0.5% of the market.

So, how is Windows 8 doing? Doubling in two weeks or so is decent, TNW thinks. Again, Windows 8 is hardly blowing the walls down, but at this rate the product will grow at a passable rate. Whether we will see a spike of Christmas sales is the next question that will be answered in short order.

*Weekly data is less reliable than monthly data, as the sample is smaller. Via WinSyde. Top Image Credit: Dell Inc.