Windows XP is still installed on more than 24 percent of PCs worldwide

Aug 1, 2014 08:19 GMT  ·  By

Windows XP continues to be a very popular operating system these days, even though it officially reached end of support on April 8, but Microsoft continues efforts to move users to a newer OS version.

Statistics provided by market researcher firm Net Applications for the month of July 2014 show that Windows XP is still powering 24 percent of the desktop computers worldwide, losing only 0.49 percent of its users in the last 30 days.

Since April, when Microsoft pulled the plug on Windows XP, only 1.47 percent of the users actually moved to another operating system, which is a clear indication that it could take a while until the company manages to kill this particular OS version completely.

The biggest drop in market share recorded by Windows XP took place in December 2013, when the operating system declined from 31.22 percent the month before to 28.98 percent, thus losing 2.24 percent of its users. Most of them were actually upgrading to Windows 8.1, the new operating system that was introduced in October last year.

However, figures returned back to normal the next month, when Windows XP actually increased its market share to 29.30 percent, despite the approaching end of support.

On average, Windows XP is more or less losing 1 percent of its users every month, although sometimes even fewer people are actually upgrading to a newer Windows version.

If the same trend is maintained, Microsoft might need more than 2 years to completely kill Windows XP, given its 24 percent market share, which is clearly bad news for a company that hopes to boost adoption of its modern operating system as fast as possible.

In the meantime, Microsoft continues its efforts to move users to a newer platform and abandon Windows XP, so new statements on the security risks of staying on an unsupported platform are being issued every once in a while.

“In the past 12 years you’ve probably gotten a new phone, maybe a new TV, and possibly even a new car. Maybe it’s time for a new PC too, so you can make sure you have more memory and storage, faster processing speeds, and a higher-quality display (some even come with touch). And they’re less expensive than you might think,” Microsoft has said in such a statement, trying to emphasize that the company has supported Windows XP more than any other product on the market.