Windows is the overwhelmingly dominant operating system running on PCs around the world, and it's been that way for decades. Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) ubiquitous OS enjoyed a 72% share of the global desktop operating system market at the end of 2023, with 's OS X a distant second at 16%. These figures come from Statcounter and should be interpreted as ballpark estimates, but it's clear that Windows reigns supreme.

While Windows remains dominant, it has lost some of that dominance over time. According to Statcounter, Windows' market share has dropped more than 20 percentage points since 2009. The increasing popularity of Apple's Mac computers explains most of that decline, but not all of it.

Linux, in all its variants, has become far more prevalent over the past 15 years. Linux had a market share of just 0.68% in 2009. In 2023, that share had ballooned to 3.82%. That's still tiny compared to Windows, but a fivefold increase is notable, nonetheless.

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Source Fool.com