14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft hasn’t provided us with updated figures on Windows 10 adoption, but a new set of market share figures from StatCounter show that Redmond’s new operating system continued its growth in August, and what’s more, it substantially impacted Windows 7’s market share.
For example, Windows 7 is currently at 39.93 percent, and this marks the first time when the operating system launched in 2009 dropped below the 40 percent share since its debut 7 years ago.
Windows 7 has long been the top desktop operating system around the world, but Windows 10 is getting closer to taking over the leading spot and could even do this by the end of the year.
Windows 10 is already the runner-up, and the August 2016 market share figures put it at 24.43 percent, well ahead its predecessor and Mac OS X.
The third desktop platform in the charts is Apple’s OS X (soon to be macOS), which holds a share of 9.87 percent, while Windows 8.1 is next with 8.36 percent. Windows XP has dropped to 5.85 percent, and this is clearly good news, as users are finally moving away from the operating system launched 15 years ago.
First month without free upgrades
The good news for Microsoft isn’t necessarily the fact that Windows 10 is growing, but that it’s growing even without the free upgrade campaign, as it ended the promo on July 29, and August was the first month when those who wanted to perform the switch to Windows 10 had to pay (or do it for free if they completed the transition prior to the end of the campaign).
And what’s more, Microsoft expects the Windows 10 share to continue improving by the end of the year, especially after delivering the Anniversary Update. Many enterprises are currently in the piloting phase of Windows 10, and the majority was expecting the first update for the operating system before moving further to deployment, and now that the Anniversary Update is available, a new wave of upgrades is bound to happen.
The next few months are very likely to bring better adoption figures for Windows 10, so we’ll keep an eye on these stats and update you with more info next month.