Last we heard, Chrome OS was quickly increasing its reach in the business world, but despite its recent advances, a new study by ad network Chitika shows that it still remains a niche product. Chrome OS doubled its share of web traffic from U.S. and Canadian users to the roughly 300,000 sites on Chitika’s network over the last five months. That’s impressive, but the reality is that it still just accounts for 0.2 percent of all visits on the company’s network.
Linux, which forms the underpinnings of Google’s operating system, currently sits at about 1.9 percent of traffic on Chitika’s network.
As usual, it’s worth remembering that this is just one vendor’s number. While Chrome OS laptops are selling well on Amazon and other sites, many of them are being widely deployed in schools and enterprises. Because of this, the kind of user who uses a Chrome OS machine may not fully overlap with those who visit sites that use Chitika’s ads. Many of the machines may also be mostly used on intranets.
About a year ago, Chrome OS was sitting at about 0.07 percent in Chitika’s stats. That itself was up 700 percent from June 2012 and about on par with the traffic the network saw from the PlayStation.
As more hardware vendors launch their Chrome OS laptops (and desktops), we will likely see Chrome OS usage continue to increase in the coming months. For the foreseeable future, it will surely remain a niche product, but it already has Microsoft on its toes and there can be little doubt that Google remains deeply committed to the project.