14 DAY TRIAL // Market share data provided by NetMarketShare reveals that Windows 10 managed to reach a new milestone in August, surpassing the 50 percent threshold for the first time since the July 2015 launch.
Windows 10 is thus the number one desktop operating system, powering more than half of the computers out there.
Windows 10 has a share of 50.99% right now, up from 48.86% in July, while Windows 7, which continues to be the main alternative, dropped from 31.83% to 30.34% the last month.
This can only be good news for Microsoft, not only because Windows 10 keeps growing, but also because Windows 7 will be retired in January 2020. The last batch of updates for Windows 7 will be shipped on January 14, and the platform will then officially become unsupported.
Windows XP almost nowhere to be seen
Windows 8.1, which together with Windows 10 will remain the only two supported Windows versions, dropped from 5.29% in July to 4.20% in August, but this isn’t necessarily something to be surprised about. Microsoft is pushing hard for users to move to Windows 10, so it’s believed that the majority of users giving up on Windows 7 actually upgrade to this latest OS version.
Windows XP, the operating system that no longer receives updates since April 2014, is now at 1.57%, as more computers are upgraded to supported Windows.
At this point, Windows XP is mostly used by companies which delay the upgrade because of compatibility reasons and the high costs such a transition involves. A move to supported Windows most often includes hardware upgrades as well, which for a large fleet of devices can become too expensive.
Windows 10 is likely to continue its growth in the coming months, especially as we get closer to the Windows 7 end-of-support date and new versions of the operating system are released.