Preliminary November data shows the growth continues

Nov 16, 2015 07:03 GMT  ·  By

Windows 10 continues its growth, and preliminary data for the month of November 2015 shows that the operating system has become the third most used desktop platform in the world, managing to overtake Windows XP and Mac OS X.

Launched in late July, Windows 10 had a rapid early growth but slowed down in September, as more people decided to wait for the Threshold 2 release and only then move to the new OS.

And these statistics show that Threshold 2 indeed brought more people on board, but given the fact that they only concern the first 15 days of November, the impact this update had on Windows 10’s market share is not fully measured.

Windows 7 still the king

Right now, Windows 7 continues to be the world’s number one desktop operating system with a share of 49.91 percent, followed by Windows 8.1 with 13.11 percent. In other words, Windows 7 is still the platform of choice for one in two computers in the world, which is quite impressive, given the fact that this OS was launched in 2009 and two other versions have arrived since then.

Windows 10, however, managed to speed up its growth to eventually reach a market share of 9.8 percent, and by the end of the month, these figures are expected to continue going up, as Threshold 2 is reason enough for many to upgrade.

Microsoft says that Threshold 2 also makes Windows 10 ready for the enterprise sector, and given the fact that companies own tens, hundreds, or even thousands of computers that can be upgraded, the software giant is very confident that the growth can be more significant in the coming months.

The free upgrade offer, however, is only available for consumers, so enterprises that want to install Windows 10 still have to pay for a license. Of course, the biggest challenge is to convince these enterprises to upgrade, so it remains to be seen if Windows 10 can be successful in this sector too.