Android Poised To Topple Windows As World’s Most Used Operating System

It looks as though Google’s Android operating system is on the verge of making history. According to analytics firm StatCounter, the current trending shows Android quickly approaching parity with Windows as the world’s most popular operating system among all computing devices.

What more striking, however, is the fact that Microsoft has been losing overall market share at a rapid pace since 2012. At that time, Microsoft was riding high with 82 percent share of all global OS traffic. But it has been a steady march downward, and today Microsoft’s Windows-based operating systems have a collective 38.6 percent share of the global OS market according to StatCounter.

Image Source: JD Hancock/Flickr

On the other hand, Android was a mere speck in the rear-view mirror of Windows operating systems in 2012 with a share of just 2.2 percent. However, Android has steadily increased its share to the point where it today has a 37.4 percent share of the global OS market. If these trend lines continue, it’s quite possible that Android will overtake Windows later this year, and most definitely by 2018.

“The idea of Android almost matching Windows would have been unthinkable five years ago,” said StatCounter CEO Aodhan Cullen. “Windows has won the desktop war but the battlefield has moved on.”

The changing of the guard can no doubt be attributed to the declining importance of PCs in the everyday lives of consumers, and the increasing ubiquity of smartphones as our “go to” tool for communications. Android is by far the most dominant operating system installed on smartphones sold around the world, so it stands to reason that we are seeing that fact reflected in StatCounter’s analysis.