New data shows Windows 7 returns to growth

Oct 1, 2018 07:21 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft is getting ready to launch Windows 10 October 2018 Update, and on the eve of the release, here is some pretty bad news.

Windows 10 is declining in global market share numbers, while Windows 7, the 2009 predecessor that will be retired in 2020, increased last month, according to NetMarketShare.

Specifically, Windows 7 jumped from 40.27% in August to 40.88% in September, showing that despite the approaching end of support, users aren’t very concerned about it. Windows 7 will no longer receive security updates after the January 2020 Patch Tuesday, and Microsoft recommends users worldwide to upgrade to Windows 10 as soon as possible.

At the same time, Windows 10 dropped from 37.80% to 37.44%, but the operating system is expected to return to growth this month, and the increase should gain more pace as we approach the end of support date of Windows 7.

Feature updates

However, it’s important to note that new Windows 10 feature updates do not typically produce a major adoption boost, so the upcoming October 2018 Update is unlikely to have a substantial contribution to the operating system closing the gap versus Windows 7.

Interestingly, September 2018 also brought an important share increase for Apple’s macOS, as it increased its share from 5.86 percent to 6.08 percent. It may not seem much at first, but the arrival of macOS Mojave is most likely the main catalyst of the jump, which shows that in the Apple ecosystem, new OS releases do power faster global adoption.

Windows 10 October 2018 Update will launch this month, as Microsoft has already finalized development and is expected to share the release details at its Surface press event tomorrow. Insiders in the Fast and Slow rings have received the RTM build, and Microsoft will promote the same version to the Release Preview ring this week.