If somebody asked you what was more popular: Windows 8 or Mac OS, you’d probably guess the latter.
But from a sheer numbers standpoint, there are now more Windows 8 users than Mac OS X users. The latest market share numbers for September show that Windows 8 gained 0.44% market share to grow to 7.46%, while Mac OS X dropped 0.20% to reach 6.98% market share. That data was collected over the course of September 2013 by online research firm StatCounter.

As Microsoft fans lose their minds with excitement, there are some sobering facts to think about. In the chart listed above, Windows 8 and Mac OS X are hardly a blip on the radar. You see that jumble of lines along the bottom of the graph? That’s Windows 8 and Mac OS X.
You see the blue line running steady through the middle of the graph? That’s Windows XP, a more than 10 year old operating system that Microsoft makes virtually no money on. And that yellow line at the very top of the graph is the best PC operating system ever made, Windows 7.
Microsoft is having trouble giving Windows 7 users a reason to upgrade to Windows 8: Windows 7 dropped just 0.03% in September 2013 to achieve a 51.98% market share. Meanwhile, Windows XP market share somehow rose by 0.01% to 20.59% in September 2013. Figure that one out.
Another sobering point for Windows 8 fans (are there any outside of Microsoft?) is that only about half of all Mac users have updated to the new Mac OS X. So there are still more Mac OS users in total compared to Windows 8 users.
Nevertheless, I’m sure Microsoft’s fanboys will still be happy about the fact that Windows 8 is growing. Hopefully Windows 8.1 makes Microsoft’s newest OS a little more usable.