Linux Surpasses 5% Desktop Market Share in the U.S. for the First Time
According to Statcounter’s statistics, Linux recently achieved a market share of more than five percent in history for the first time in history – in the United States. But it also went up in Europe, with Microsoft and his policy around Windows playing a role.
Not the ‘year from Linux’, but almost
Do we finally have “the year of Linux”? This wonderful question has been asked again and again in some media at an annual distance for a few decades. So far, the large boom has failed to materialize, but more or less reliable statistics at least make it clear that the number of users has actually increased recently. How Tech spot noted, the statistics service Statzocounter recorded For the first time, a Linux market share in the United States for 5.03 percent for the first time. The free operating system in its variants would have achieved a historic high in terms of market share. In Europe, Linux’s desktop market share was according to Statcounter Currently at 4.19 percent And was also able to get minimal. Source: Statcounter Global Stats – OS Market Share
Share could be significantly higher
But that was not all, because Statcounter does not indicate any operating system for some of the systems recorded, although part of it should also run with Linux. The proportion of these operating systems in the United States is currently currently 4.76 percent. The Google OS for cheap laptops based on the Linux kernel meanwhile comes to a 2.71 percent market share in desktops in the states. The statistics of Statcounter according to its own information are based on the data of around 1.5 million websites, which together indicate around five billion pages a month. The company does not reveal which websites evaluate statcounter, which is why it is open how meaningful the data is in the real world.
Nevertheless, Linux friends can definitely hope for the growth of the market share of the free operating system. As possible factors for the increase in the 5 percent brand in the USA, the colleagues suspect the popularity of Valves Steam OS under gaming fans and the upcoming support end of Windows 10. Since Microsoft no longer supplies the remaining users of Windows 10 from October 2025, they have to look around for the old operating system. If you are simply not willing to switch to Windows 11 or cannot do it due to restrictions on the respective hardware, you can rely on Linux, among other things, to continue to operate an old PC.
