14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft keeps pushing for the Windows 10 upgrade, and the company has recently updated the “Get Windows 10” app as part of its Patch Tuesday cycle, but it appears that the growth of the new operating system is rather slow.
New preliminary data for the month of March shows that while Windows 10 has indeed improved its share, the growth is still below expectations, with the new OS remaining far behind leader Windows 7.
Microsoft has made upgrading Windows 7 computers to Windows 10 a priority, but for the moment, only few of the users running the operating system launched in 2009 have agreed to move to the new version. The push will continue until July this year, when Microsoft is expected to end the free upgrade promo for Windows 10.
Windows 10 at 16 percent
According to data provided by StatCounter, Windows 10 is currently at 16.37 percent while Windows 7 is still leading the pack with a share of 45.85 percent. Truth is, Windows 7 has indeed lost share, and Windows 10 has improved it, but the difference between the two is still too big to give hope that the latter could become the leading choice anytime soon.
The third place goes to Windows 8.1, which is now powering 11.03 percent of the desktop computers around the world, while Mac OS X is at 9.35 percent. Without a doubt, OS X has also experienced an important growth following the launch of Windows 10, as many users who refuse to upgrade also switch to non-Windows products, including those running OS X and Linux.
Windows XP has lost share significantly in March and dropped to 7.52 percent, which was kind of expected, given the fact that it no longer receives support since April 2014.
Keep in mind that this is just preliminary data for March, and it could slightly change before the end of the month.