Re: Windows Server Market Share 2022
Latrisha Adan
The usage share of an operating system is the percentage of computers running that operating system (OS). These statistics are estimates as wide scale OS usage data is difficult to obtain and measure. Reliable primary sources are limited and data collection methodology is not formally agreed. Currently devices connected to the internet allow for web data collection to approximately measure OS usage.
As of April 2024[update], Android, a mobile OS that uses the Linux kernel, is the world's most widely used operating system. It has 42.73% of the global market, followed by Windows with 28.08%, iOS with 17.93%, macOS with 5.72%, desktop Linux at 1.52%, with the remaining 2.72% being ChromeOS and numerous smaller operating systems.[1] These numbers do not include embedded devices or game consoles.
Linux has completely dominated the supercomputer field since 2017, with all of the top 500 most powerful supercomputers in the world running a Linux distribution. Linux is also most used for web servers, and the most common Linux distribution is Ubuntu, followed by Debian.
The most numerous type of device with an operating system are embedded systems. Not all embedded systems have operating systems, instead running their application code on the "bare metal"; of those that do have operating systems, a high percentage are standalone or do not have a web browser, which makes their usage share difficult to measure. Some operating systems used in embedded systems are more widely used than some of those mentioned above; for example, modern Intel microprocessors contain an embedded management processor running a version of the Minix operating system.[5]
Shipments (to stores) does not necessarily translate to sales to consumers, therefore suggesting the numbers indicate popularity and/or usage could be misleading. Not only do smartphones sell in higher numbers than PCs, but also a lot more by dollar value, with the gap only projected to widen, to well over double.[13]
For 2015 (and earlier), Gartner reports for "the year, worldwide PC shipments declined for the fourth consecutive year, which started in 2012 with the launch of tablets" with an 8% decline in PC sales for 2015 (not including cumulative decline in sales over the previous years).[15]
Microsoft backed away from their goal of one billion Windows 10 devices in three years (or "by the middle of 2018")[16] and reported on 26 September 2016 that Windows 10 was running on over 400 million devices,[17] and in March 2019 on more than 800 million.[18]
In May 2020, Gartner predicted further decline in all market segments for 2020 due to COVID-19, predicting a decline by 13.6% for all devices. while the "Work from Home Trend Saved PC Market from Collapse", with them only predicting to decline by 10.5% for PCs. However, in the end according to Gartner, PC shipments grew 10.7% in the fourth quarter of 2020 and reached 275 million units in 2020, a 4.8% increase from 2019 and the highest growth in ten years." Apple in 4th place for PCs had the largest growth in shipments for a company in Q4 of 31.3%, while "the fourth quarter of 2020 was another remarkable period of growth for Chromebooks, with shipments increasing around 200% year over year to reach 11.7 million units. In 2020, Chromebook shipments increased over 80% to total nearly 30 million units, largely due to demand from the North American education market." Chromebooks sold more (30 mln) than Apple's Macs worldwide (22,5 mln) in pandemic year 2020.[19]
While that number is far higher than the 200-plus million units globally projected by research firms IDC, Gartner and Forrester, Envisioneering analyst Richard Doherty says the rival estimates miss all the cheap Asian knockoff tablets that have been churning off assembly lines.[..]
Some 281 million PCs were expected to be sold, according to IDC, down from 308 million in 2014. Folks tend to be happy with the older computers and keep them for longer, as more of our daily computing activities have moved to the smartphone.[..]
While Windows 10 got good reviews from tech critics, only 11% of the 1-billion-plus Windows user base opted to do the upgrade, according to Microsoft. This suggests Microsoft has a ways to go before the software gets "hit" status. Apple's new operating system El Capitan has been downloaded by 25% of Apple's user base, according to Apple.
This conflicts with statistics from IDC that say the tablet market contracted by 10% in 2015 with only Huawei, ranked fifth, with big gains, more than doubling their share; for fourth quarter 2015, the five biggest vendors were the same except that Amazon Fire tablets ranked third worldwide, new on the list, enabled by its not quite tripling of market share to 7.9%, with its Fire OS Android-derivative.[24]
On 28 May 2015, Google announced that there were 1.4 billion Android users and 1 billion Google play users active during that month.[30][31] This changed to 2 billion monthly active users in May 2017.[32][33]
By late 2016, Android had been explained to be "killing" Apple's iOS market share (i.e. its declining sales of smartphones, not just relatively but also by number of units, when the whole market is increasing) with
These figures, which cover the second quarter of 2016, show that Android has actually increased its market share by 4 percent over the last year. All other operating systems are down, with iOS losing 1.7 percent [..]
Gartner's own press release said, "Apple continued its downward trend with a decline of 7.7 percent in the second quarter of 2016",[36] which is their decline, based on absolute number of units, that underestimates the relative decline (with the market increasing), along with the misleading "1.7 percent [point]" decline. That point decline means an 11.6% relative decline (from 14.6% down to 12.9%).
Although in units sold Apple is declining, they are almost the only vendor making any profit in the smartphone sector from hardware sales alone. In Q3 2016 for example, they captured 103.6% of the market profits.[37]
There are more mobile phone owners than toothbrush owners,[38] with mobile phones the fastest growing technology in history.[citation needed] There are a billion more active mobile phones in the world than people (and many more than 10 billion sold so far with less than half still in use), explained by the fact that some people have more than one, such as an extra for work.[39] All the phones have an operating system, but only a fraction of them are smartphones with an OS capable of running modern applications. Currently 3.1 billion smartphones and tablets are in use across the world (with tablets, a small fraction of the total, generally running the same operating systems, Android or iOS, the latter being more popular on tablets. In 2019, a variant of iOS called iPadOS built for iPad tablets was released).
Data from various sources published over the 2021/2022 period is summarized in the table below. All of these sources monitor a substantial number of websites, any statistics that relate to only one web site have been excluded.
The designation of an "Unknown" operating system is strangely high in a few countries such as Madagascar where it was at 32.44% (no longer near as high).[67] This may be due to the fact that StatCounter uses browser detection to get OS statistics, and there the most common browsers are not often used. The version breakdown for browsers in Madagascar shows "Other" at 34.9%,[68] and Opera Mini 4.4 is the most popular known browser at 22.1% (plus e.g. 3.34% for Opera 7.6). However browser statistics without version-breakdown has Opera at 48.11% with the "Other" category very small.[69][clarification needed]
Online usage of Linux kernel derivatives (Android + ChromeOS + other Linux) exceeds that of Windows. This has been true since some time between January and April 2016, according to W3Counter[75] and StatCounter.[76]However, even before that, the figure for all Unix-like OSes, including those from Apple, was higher than that for Windows.
Windows is still the dominant desktop OS, but the dominance varies by region and it has gradually lost market share to other desktop operating systems (not just to mobile) with the slide very noticeable in the US, where macOS usage has more than quadrupled from Jan. 2009 to Dec. 2020 to 30.62% (i.e. in Christmas month; and 34.72% in April 2020 in the middle of COVID-19, and iOS was more popular overall that year;[86] globally Windows lost to Android that year,[87] as for the two years prior), with Windows down to 61.136% and ChromeOS at 5.46%, plus traditional Linux at 1.73%.[88]
StatCounter web usage data of desktop or laptop operating systems varies significantly by country. For example, in 2017, macOS usage in North America was at 16.82%[93] (17.52% in the US[94]) whereas in Asia it was only 4.4%.[95] As of July 2023, macOS usage has increased to 30.81% in North America[96] (31.77% in the US)[97] and to 9.64% in Asia.[98]
Since mid-2020, the world uses smartphones more than desktop (including laptop) computers.[99][100][101] For global statistics it's every day of the week. It has also happened for all individual continents[102][103][104] (at least for some weeks, and also for the United States where the smartphone share reached 54.26% in July 2022,[105][106][107][108] and also that high in 2021). The proportions do vary widely by region (more so than by the day), e.g. in Africa the smartphone share is highest at 72%, in Asia at 69% and in South America at 60%, in Europe is 49% while desktop is slightly lower, and in the United States it's at 43% and desktop at 54% (previously at 50%). On some continents, e.g. North America and the US, smartphone use may only go over 50% on weekends, since smartphones usage increases on weekends,[109][110][111][112] while the smartphone share has gone up to 54% for a single day (Thanksgiving), and on average over 50% for full week.[113][114]
The 2023 Stack Overflow developer survey counts 87,222 survey responses. However, usage of a particular system as a desktop or as a server was not differentiated in the survey responses. The operating system share among those identifying as professional developers was:[115]
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