macOS loses market share, Linux and Windows smile: what happens among desktop operating systems?

Over the past year, the desktop operating system market has undergone a series of shocks interesting ones that mainly concerned Windows And Mac, while the adoption of Linux increases slowly but steadily (if you are interested in installing Linux on your PC, take a look at our guide).

This is highlighted by the web traffic analysis site Statcounter, which has updated its data to February 2024. Let’s see the results, keeping in mind that the site collects its data from over 1.5 million global websites that generate over 5 billion monthly page views, removing bot activity and adjusting for Google prerendering Chrome.

Going to see the different operating systems desktop globally (desktop and laptop computers), we can see how Linux (red line) present constant growth.

If in February 2023 the operating system of penguin was installed on the 2.94% of computersin February 2024 it reached 4.03% of the global market.

A nice step forward compared to 2019, when it was installed on the1.59% of computers.

Nonetheless, Penguin fans often wonder why Linux’s adoption rate is increasing so slowly. According to the creator of the Linux kernel, Linus Torvalds, the problem is the lack of a standardized desktop that unites all Linux distributions. Nonetheless in some markets, such as India, the operating system is enormously popular, so much so that it is the second most popular desktop operating system.

The data relating to is very interesting Windows And macOS. Windows is the dominant operating system, but from June 2022 to June 2023 it had a collapse in market share, going from 76.33% to 68.23%.

The peak between is particularly striking April and June 2023, corresponding to an increase in the adoption of operating systems not known to Statcounter (which can also be new versions of an operating system, in this case Windows). Since then, however, Windows has gained ground and, a November 2023 adoption underwent a sharp acceleration precisely in conjunction with the decline in macOS. It is now back to 72.17% adoption.

The situation is more worrying macOS. apple‘s operating system has moved on from 21.32% of November 2023 to 15.42% of February 2024, meaning it is back to February 2023 levels.

It is not clear what these are due to sudden changesit is also possible that there are errors in the detection system or, as we mentioned above, even a new releases of an operating system.

However, if we look at the market shares of computer of the apple, we note how they are in line with Statcounter data. According to data from IDC Apple went from 9.3% to 8.4% from 2022 to 2023, while in 2023 it went from 8.6% in the second quarter to 10.6% in the third quarter, before returning to 8.5% % in the fourth quarter.

We close with ChromeOS, which from 4.01% in October is now at 2.27% of the world market.

And in Italy? The situation in ours Village it is much less dramatic, as we can see in the graph below, but it is still noticeable from a rise of Linux and a decline in macOS from 2024.

In the United States, however, the trend is more in line with graphic global, indeed it is even more marked adoption collapse of macOS (which settles at around 25% and is less distant from Windows).