OS X Mavericks Adoption Rate Three Times Greater Than Mountain Lion

Apple cited a desire to give customers easy access to the latest technologies when they announced that OS X Mavericks, the latest version of the venerable desktop operating system, would be free for all users, and it looks like the company will get its wish. It turns out that “free” is a powerful motivator and, according to analytics firm Chitikia, Mavericks adoption is over three times faster than that of its predecessor, OS X Mountain Lion.

The adoption rate data, based on the number of Macs detected online via Chitika’s advertising network, shows that Mavericks accounted for 5.5 percent of all OS X usage in the U.S. and Canada after just 24 hours of availability. That’s triple the rate of Mountain Lion, which hit just 1.6 percent adoption 24 hours after its release in July 2012. Analytics firm GoSquared paints an even rosier picture, and reports that over 13 percent of active Macs are running Mavericks (although GoSquared’s system tracks only its own network and may therefore overrepresent Mavericks traffic).

OS X Mavericks represents the culmination of Apple’s aggressive pricing strategy. After years of charging $100+ for operating system upgrades, Apple switched gears in 2009 and released OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard for $30. The company continued this strategy by releasing OS X Lion as a digital-only download for the same price in 2011, and then cut the price to just $20 for Mountain Lion last year. Now, all users with compatible Macs can pick up Mavericks for free, regardless of the version of OS X they have installed.

Mavericks is available now from the Mac App Store. Check out the relatively generous system requirements at Apple’s support site.