14 DAY TRIAL // New market share data provided by NetMarketShare shows that Windows 7 returned to growth in February, while Windows 10, which is Microsoft’s most recent desktop operating system, started losing ground.
Specifically, Windows 7 is the number one operating system on the desktop with a share of 48.41 percent, while Windows 10 is currently the runner-up with 25.19 percent. Windows XP is third with 8.45 percent, followed by Windows 8.1 with 6.87 percent.
As far as Windows 7 and Windows 10 are concerned, it looks like the older version is improving its market share once again, while the newer sibling is actually going down, not in a significant way, but still declining in a time when everyone expected it to grow.
Windows 7 improved from 47.20 percent to 48.41 percent, so it gained more than 1 percent market share in just a single month.
At the opposite pole there’s Windows 10, which dropped from 25.30 percent to 25.19 percent. As you can see, this isn’t a substantial drop, but it’s still a drop, despite Microsoft’s rather aggressive push for Windows 10 and the free upgrade offer that was supposed to bring everyone on the new OS.
Windows XP finally losing users
On the Windows XP front, there’s some pretty exciting news: the nearly 16-year-old operating system is losing ground as well, so it declined from 9.17 percent to 8.45 percent last month, which makes perfect sense given the fact that it no longer receives updates and security updates since April 2014.
Windows 10 is now Microsoft’s main focus, so it’s a little surprising to see it going down now when most enterprises are supposed to complete the piloting phase and start the deployment of the operating system in their networks.
Microsoft, however, is well aware that adoption is slowing down, so the company admitted that it might miss its goal of bringing Windows 10 on 1 billion devices by the end of FY2017, especially because of upgrades that take place at a slower pace than initially predicted.