14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system has managed to grab 5.42 percent of the OS market at the end of July, recent data from Net Applications unveils.
However, the operating system grew only 0.32 percentage points during the month, after enjoying a 0.83 percentage points increase in June.
According to a recent article on TNW, the June surge was mainly due to the release of Windows 8.1 Preview, which helped the platform gain 5.10 percent market share.
In July, however, its growth slowed down, though it was accompanied by a 0.13 percentage points increase in Windows 7 usage, which now accounts for 44.50 percent of the market.
Ever since its official release in October, Windows 8 has showed steady growth, though the July increase appears to be the smallest one until now.
Available only as a Preview version for the time being, Windows 8.1 should arrive on PCs in the not too distant future, offering some appealing new features when compared to Windows 8, and capable of attracting more users to it, that’s for sure.
This should help Windows 8 increase its share on the market, though it might still take a while before it will manage to take down already established platform iterations from Microsoft.
While Windows 8 and Windows 7 still experienced a surge in usage, Windows XP and Windows Vista lost some more ground on the market.
Windows XP lost only 0.15 percentage points during the past month and, despite Microsoft’s efforts to determine users’ to transition to a newer OS flavor, it is still enjoying a 37.02 percent market share.
On the other hand, Windows Vista dropped 0.35 percentage points in the timeframe, and is now accounting for only 4.26 percent of the PCs out there.
Overall, Microsoft’s operating system has lost market share in front of rivals in July, now accounting for 91.45 percent of the market. That translates into a 0.06 percentage points decrease from the 91.51 percent share it enjoyed in June.