14 DAY TRIAL // Windows 8 has often been described as a new disaster for Redmond-based software giant Microsoft, especially because it reportedly recorded sales that were similar to the ones posted by Vista after launch.
And still, things are getting significantly better for Microsoft and Windows 8. According to figures provided by market researcher StatCounter, Windows 8 is currently the fourth most popular operating system in the world and the third when it comes to Windows versions exclusively.
At this point, Windows 8 is installed on 5.75 percent of computers worldwide, while Windows Vista has a market share of 5.44 percent.
Windows 7 continues to top the rankings with 53.39 percent, while XP comes second with 21.3 percent. Mac OS X is the only non-Windows platform in the top 5, as it holds a market share of 7.51 percent.
While this is indeed good news for the Redmond-based software giant, Windows 8 adoption remains moderate to say the least. Microsoft claims that it has sold 100 million licenses in the first six months on the market, pointing out that Windows 8’s sales performance is pretty much in line with the one of Windows 7 after launch.
On the other hand, Microsoft has every reason to be optimistic on the short term. The company is getting ready to debut its Windows Blue “set of plans” and refresh not only the Windows operating system, but also several other key products, such as Internet Explorer, Windows RT, Surface tablets, the Windows Store, and Windows Phone.
The official preview of Windows 8.1 will be unveiled later this month during the BUILD developer conference, while the stable version is rumored to see daylight in August.
In addition, Microsoft is already working on Windows 9, the next major Windows release that could see daylight next year in November.