Windows Market Share Falls Below 60% for First Time in History, Down to 56%

Windows' share of the global desktop operating system market fell below 60% for the first time in history: while in June 2025 it accounted for more than 70% of desktops, by June 2026 the share had declined to 56%, while the popularity of macOS and Linux distributions increased noticeably.

How Windows' share has changed

• June 2025 — more than 70% of the desktop operating system market
• June 2026 — 56% of the market, below 60% for the first time
• The decline over one year amounted to more than 14 percentage points
• At the same time, the share of macOS and Linux grew — users are switching to alternative systems

Why users are leaving Windows

The report does not name direct causes of the collapse, but the trend is forming against the backdrop of several simultaneous processes in the industry. Apple has in recent years grown its share of laptops on its own Apple Silicon chips, which significantly outperform competitors in battery life and performance per watt. Linux distributions, in turn, have become noticeably more user-friendly for ordinary users thanks to the Proton compatibility layer, which allows you to run a significant portion of the Steam catalog without Windows — this removed one of the main barriers to gaming enthusiasts switching.

User fatigue with Microsoft's own policies also plays a role: strict hardware requirements for new Windows versions, built-in advertising in the interface, and aggressive promotion of its own AI services are forcing part of the audience to seriously consider alternatives they never thought about before.

In the gaming segment, the Steam Deck handheld console based on the Linux SteamOS distribution has accustomed millions of users to the idea that Windows is no longer necessary for gaming, and inexpensive Chromebooks running ChromeOS remain a mass choice in education and for basic office tasks — this additionally drains Windows' share in desktop system statistics.

How operating system share is calculated

Such statistics are typically built on analysis of tens of billions of website visits: special services determine the operating system from the browser headers of each visit and aggregate data by country and month. The method is not perfect — it is tied to web traffic rather than direct device sales — but these are the metrics that have served for decades as the main indicator of who is winning the desktop platform wars. This is exactly why Windows falling below the psychological threshold of 60% is perceived in the industry as a symbolic milestone, not just another fluctuation in monthly statistics.

What this means

If the trend continues, the Windows monopoly on desktops — the foundation of Microsoft's business for three decades — will continue to erode. For Microsoft itself, this is an additional incentive to retain users in other ways: embedding the Copilot AI assistant deeper in the interface and subscription services rather than relying only on people's habit of staying on Windows. For software developers and corporate IT departments, in turn, it will become increasingly necessary to seriously plan support for macOS and Linux rather than consider them niche platforms.