Chrome OS already has more than twice the market share in the United States than traditional Linux distros
Linux on the desktop, even though it hurts many in the soul, has a very tiny market share. In October 2016, we told them that they had achieved the maximum quota in their history, but barely passed 2%. This according to NetMarketShare data, because those of other analytics are less optimistic.
If we look at the StatCounter data that shows the market share of desktop operating systems for February 2017 around the world, we will find that Linux maintains a 1.53%. The curious fact of this new report, is that in the US market Chrome OS already has more than twice the quota that Linux.
The graph shows a Chrome OS with 3.36% of the market vs. 1.47% of Linux. Windows continues to maintain its overwhelming majority. However, although the market in the United States tends to set trends in other parts of the world, in this particular section, it is the only place where Chrome OS has this advantage over Linux.
In Europe Chrome OS only has 0.42% of the market versus 2% of Linux. The global statistics have a little closer, with 1.53% for Linux and 0.83% for Chrome OS. In Latin America Chrome OS barely has 0.11% market share according to StatCounter.
It does not matter, Chrome OS is also Linux
Yes, technically Chrome OS is Linux . The operating system designed by Google is based on the Linux kernel and uses the Google Chrome browser as its main user interface to support all types of web applications. However, many analytics, such as StatCounter, do not place it in the same category of traditional Linux distributions as Ubuntu or Arch.
Chrome OS is only available on devices created specifically with the Google operating system in mind. It is not a distro that you can easily download as a Fedora or elementary OS and put it on any computer, in fact the options available for this are quite complicated and disappointing.
Be that as it may, the real market share of Linux has always been very difficult to measure. With so many distributions, kernel versions and browsers, there are more complicated parts to identify. But it is still an interesting trend and could continue to grow as Google plans evolve with its cloud-based operating system.
