Usage share of operating systems

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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 September 2024^[update], Android, a mobile OS that uses the Linux kernel has 45.38% of the global market and is the world's most widely used operating system. Followed by Windows with 25.61%, iOS with 18.39%, macOS with 5.53% and Desktop Linux with 1.64%. The remaining uncategorised operating systems total 2.51%.^[1] These numbers do not include embedded devices or game consoles.

• For smartphones and other mobile devices, Android leads with 71.67% market share, and Apple's iOS has 27.73%.^[2]
• For desktop computers and laptops, Microsoft Windows has 71.47%, followed by Apple's macOS at 15.45%, desktop Linux at 6.28%% (including Google's ChromeOS at 1.73%).^[3] The remaining 6.81% is unknown.^[4]
• For tablets, Apple's iPadOS (a variant of iOS) has 56.01% share and Android has 43.79% worldwide.^[5]

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.^[6]