The Linux market share keeps growing and growing

Jul 13, 2020 15:31 GMT  ·  By

While many believe that Windows was, is, and will continue to be the preferred choice on the desktop, the most recent market share statistics show that Microsoft’s operating system is slowly but surely losing ground in the PC world.

And while Apple’s macOS is still considered a solid but expensive (from a hardware perspective) alternative to Windows, 2020 is gradually turning out to be the year of Linux.

Linux has long been described as a rival to Windows, only that its adoption has more or less stagnated at a level that allowed Microsoft to always be sure that its desktop domination would survive in the long term.

In other words, the Linux install base, especially in the consumer market, has never improved at a pace that would have threatened Windows’ leading position in the operating system market.

And now everything’s changing, as Linux keeps growing and growing, and nothing seems to stop it from reaching new adoption records in the coming months.

As I’ve said before, the Windows 7 end of support, which was announced in January this year, was a major turning point for Linux, as some of those whose devices were left without updates decided to step into the non-Windows world and give a try to the likes of Ubuntu, Linux Mint, elementary OS, or a different distro.

And without a doubt, this helped the Linux adoption overall, while also impacting the market share of Windows.

The data provided by NetMarketShare pretty much speaks for itself.

Linux started the year with a market share of just 1.47% in January, while Windows was running on no less than 88.14% of the desktop computers in the first month of 2020. In February, Linux increased to 1.81%, while Windows also recorded a small jump to 88.21%, and both operating systems are believed to have benefited from the Windows 7 end of support.

Linux, however, decreased massively to 1.36% in March, while Windows recorded an important increase to 89.21%, only for things to return to the previous trend in April when Linux jumped to 2.87%, with Microsoft’s operating system going down to 86.92%.

Linux’s growth didn’t stop here. In May this year, Linux reached 3.17% with Windows dropping even more to 86.69%. And finally, June brought another increase of Linux, this time to 3.61%, while Windows stagnated at 86.69%.

Desktop operating system market share in June 2020
Desktop operating system market share in June 2020

Therefore, in the first six months of the year, Linux improved its market share by as much as 2.14%, while Windows dropped 2.52% (from its peak in March). This has obviously reduced the gap between the two operating systems, and if the same trend is maintained, there’s a good chance Linux becomes the second most popular desktop platform rather sooner than later.

It goes without saying that Linux still has a long way to go before it can threaten Windows’ supremacy in the desktop world, but all these figures that keep improving every month are living proof that more and more users consider it the alternative that Microsoft never wanted.

And of course, while Microsoft has no reason to worry about in the short term, a continuously-improving market share for Linux doesn’t just show that more users are giving it a try, but also that the entire ecosystem is growing. And this involves developers and companies alike, with Linux becoming the operating system of choice for more apps and devices that come with it pre-loaded.

In the end, aside from gaming, something that’s being improved as we speak, there’s basically no reason for someone on Windows to refuse to give Linux a try. There are differences, that’s true, and finding alternatives to the Windows apps you previously used takes some time, but in the end, more and more users seem to discover that doing the whole thing is totally worth the effort.

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Linux is finally considered a worthy alternative to Windows
Desktop operating system market share in June 2020
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