Affiliate Disclosure
If you buy through our links, we may get a commission. Read our ethics policy.

OS X Mountain Lion passes 10% adoption in one month, on track to outperform Lion

A study from ad network Chitika found that after only one month of availability, Apple's latest OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion has garnered over 10 percent of all Mac-based ad impressions after enjoying a high adoption rate that shows no signs of slowing down.

The report released on Thursday noted adoption of Mountain Lion hit 10.3 percent as of Aug. 27, a little over one month after the operating system was released as a $20 upgrade on the Mac App Store.

The information comes from ad network Chitika's research arm, Chitika Insights, which compiled a month of OS X web traffic, sampling "hundreds of millions" of ad impressions to calculate the distribution of Mac operating system market share.

According to the study, shortly after Mountain Lion was released on July 25, its share stood at 3.2 percent of all Mac-based web traffic seen across Chitika's ad network. The high adoption rate was confirmed by Apple, which said over three million users downloaded the latest software in its first four days of availability, making it the most successful OS X launch in Apple history.


Source: Chitika Insights

The early spike subsided on July 29 after reaching a 5.65 percent share, but the report points out Mountain Lion's adoption rate continues to impress, and reached an average of 9.61 percent of all Mac traffic from Aug. 20 to Aug. 27.

In comparison to OS X 10.7 Lion, Apple's latest offering continues to outperform, as the legacy operating system took three months to hit 14 percent of total Mac traffic. The firm believes Mountain Lion's growth rate will surpass Lion's within three weeks.

Weekly Average

Apple's newest OS X offers users tighter iCloud integration, a new messaging application, Notification Center, system-wide sharing, Facebook integration, Dictation, AirPlay Mirroring, Game Center and a host of other fresh features. Most recently, the company released an update to Mountain Lion that fixed a number of issues regarding iMessage, Migration Assistant and audio output on Thunderbolt displays.