Windows Drops Below 60% of the Desktop OS Market for the First Time, Falling to 56%

Windows' share of the global desktop operating system market has fallen below 60% for the first time ever. In June 2025, it ran on more than 70% of desktops; by June 2026, that figure had dropped to 56%. Over the same period, macOS and Linux distributions grew noticeably more popular.

How Windows' share has changed

• June 2025: more than 70% of the desktop operating system market
• June 2026: 56% of the market, below the 60% mark for the first time
• The drop over the year exceeded 14 percentage points
• Over the same period, macOS and Linux gained share as users moved to alternative systems

Why are users leaving Windows?

The share figures themselves don't point to a direct cause for the decline, but the trend coincides with several shifts across the industry. In recent years, Apple has grown its share of laptops built on its own Apple Silicon chips, which clearly beat competitors on battery life and performance per watt. Linux distributions, meanwhile, have become much friendlier for everyday users thanks to the Proton compatibility layer, which lets a large portion of the Steam catalog run without Windows. That removed one of the biggest barriers keeping gamers from switching.

User fatigue with Microsoft's own policies also plays a part. Strict hardware requirements for new Windows versions, ads built into the interface, and aggressive promotion of Microsoft's own AI services are pushing some users to seriously consider alternatives they had never thought about before.

In gaming, the Steam Deck handheld, which runs the Linux-based SteamOS, has gotten millions of users used to the idea that Windows is no longer required for games. Meanwhile, inexpensive ChromeOS Chromebooks remain a mainstream choice in education and for basic office work, pulling Windows' share of desktop statistics down further.

How operating system share is measured

Statistics like these are usually built by analyzing tens of billions of website visits: specialized services identify the operating system from each visit's browser headers and aggregate the data by country and month. The method isn't perfect, since it relies on web traffic rather than actual device sales, but these numbers have served for decades as the main indicator of who is winning the desktop platform war. That's why the industry sees Windows dropping below the psychological 60% threshold as a symbolic milestone rather than just another fluctuation in monthly statistics.

What this means

If the trend holds, Windows' desktop monopoly, the foundation of Microsoft's business for three decades, will keep eroding. For Microsoft, that's an added incentive to hold on to users in other ways: embedding its Copilot AI assistant deeper into the interface and subscription services instead of relying solely on people's habit of sticking with Windows. Software developers and corporate IT departments, in turn, will increasingly have to plan for macOS and Linux support rather than treating them as niche platforms.