Market share held by PC operating systems in the U.S. 2012-2021, by month

The statistic depicts the market share of computer operating systems in the United States from January 2012 to December 2021. In December 2021, 57.61 percent of desktop PCs, tablets and consoles were operated by Windows.

Operating systems – additional information

An operating system (OS) is the most important software that runs on a computer. Operating systems enable the computer software to interact with the computer hardware. They further constitute a runtime environment for every other program on the computer. As is shown by the statistic at hand, Windows 10 has been the most popular operating system. Like its previous versions, Windows 10 was developed by Microsoft, one of the largest software makers worldwide.

Mobile operating systems

Operating systems for mobile devices have become a significant category over the past few years. Tablet shipments overtook desktops and laptops in 2013 and although tablet shipments has come down after peaking in 2014, they still remain at high levels since. Mobile operating systems are run on smartphones, tablet computers and other mobile devices. Android and iOS are the two biggest players in this market. iOS is exclusively distributed for Apple hardware, whereas Android is designed under open-source principles, meaning that it may be operated on a much wider range of devices. On the global smartphone operating system market, Android has been the unquestioned market leader since 2011. Moreover, during the last quarter 2012, Android overtook iOS in the global tablet market.