200 million Ubuntu users by 2015?

**mr john** · October 18th, 2012

I remember in May 2011 Mark said they were aiming for 200 million users by 2015. It's been nearly a year and six months since he made that speech and I was wondering how that progressing? Does anyone have any figures?

**lz1dsb** · October 18th, 2012

I doubt it that anyone could provide precise numbers... If Canonical is successful in persuading vendors to sell devices with Ubuntu preinstalled, than we might get a more precise numbers. I read a few articles about such initiatives in India, China and South Africa if I'm not wrong, but... there's nothing about how well this is going...

**Warpnow** · October 18th, 2012

I am sure Canonical has the data to know, but I doubt anyone else does.

**lykwydchykyn** · October 19th, 2012

I'd say until you see a major OEM shipping a flagship product with Ubuntu preinstalled, you can safely assume that goal is still pie-in-the-sky.

**Erik1984** · October 20th, 2012

Canonical themselves speak of "over 20 million users worldwide".

**Old_Grey_Wolf** · October 20th, 2012

Originally Posted by Warpnow

I am sure Canonical has the data to know, but I doubt anyone else does.

I don't know if Canonical knows for sure.

I have been seeding the 12.10 64-bit torrent for hours. Canonical may not know about the users that are downloading from the torrent I am seeding.

I thought about counting the computers doing security updates; however, I realized that those security updates can also come from mirrored repositories for which Canonical may not have any data.

Then, there are the Ubuntu derivatives that use the Ubuntu repositories for updates. That makes it even more confusing. Do you count them as Ubuntu or not?

I have 5 computers on my desk at the moment. All 5 have Microsoft Windows [something] installed on them. They are counted as Windows users; however, they rarely get booted into Microsoft Windows. There may be Microsoft Windows users with Ubuntu installed with the intent of learning Linux but never have actually tried to learn Linux.

LOL, I'll just make up any number I like. I love projection models. 12.5 million in 2011, 25 million in 2012, 50 million in 2013, 100 million in 2014, 200 million in 2015, and 400 million in 2016. At that rate, everyone on the planet Earth will be using Ubuntu in 10 years.