I am from india. These numbers are inflated due to our population and government and health sector office pc using linux (ubuntu). These office pcs just require a chrome browser and all the work is done on the browser Nobody here cares what os they use in their office pc. I don’t see anyone here switching to linux on their personal pc other than the IT students who are forced to install kali linux. And most of them are running linux on virtualbox on windows.
Steam deck is not even officially sold here and imported ones that are sold cost 950$ for the 512 gb variant. So it is a ultra niche item here. .
People here buy desktops only for gaming/content creation, which means most households here doesn’t need/require a desktop. And these people always prefer mac or windows.
Also gaming scene here is dominated by mobile games (because gaming pcs and consoles are too expensive and we have the cheapest internet and phone prices) As for pc games it is dominated by valorant, Minecraft and gtav (fivem rp).
Edit - Many consider this a huge win. But getting market share in the office space for basic browsing and word processing inflates the numbers for actual game/app developers who wants to support linux and they will disappointed seeing the actual usage and they will abandon the linux support. Also the indian market isn’t buying laptop/desktops for browsing, they just use their phone because pc hardware is expensive and phones prices are cheap. And anyone who is buying desktops for serious tasks stick to windows and mac.
To your first point, I don’t know about other people but I generally assumed the numbers were mostly due to office deployments, whether government or private.
Your statements about most people not having a computer are also true in the United States. When I worked support for a smartphone manufacturer I encountered so many people who not only did not have a computer, they didn’t have any internet service at all. They just use their phone for everything and rely heavily on the unlimited dataplans that are so ubiquitous nowadays. It didn’t even seem to be an age-related decision as I spoke to both young folks and folks approaching retirement age who had made this decision. As an IT worker who grew up with techy parents, the concept is wild and outlandish to me, but it’s the reality of how many people compute is they have no laptop or desktop, and may not even have Internet service