September stats show increased share for both of them

Oct 2, 2019 09:45 GMT  ·  By

Windows 7 will reach the end of support in January 2020, and with only a few months left until this happens, more and more customers begin making the switch to an operating system that still receives updates.

And according to data provided by NetMarketShare, Windows 10 and macOS are the two names that benefit the most from this migration off Windows 7.

In September 2019, Windows 10 increased its share to 52.38%, enough to remain the number one desktop operating system worldwide. Windows 7 remained the runner-up but dropped to 28.17%, while macOS came third with 7.15%.

At first glance, there’s nothing surprising about these figures, but when looking closer, both Windows 10 and macOS increased substantially in September, while Windows 7 took a nosedive.

Windows Vista going dark

MacOS 10.14, for instance, scored an increase of no less than 1.2%, which is the most Apple’s operating system managed to grow in a single month in a very long time. If the same trend is maintained, macOS will eventually reach the second place in this chart after Windows 10, especially as Windows 7 keeps declining.

Microsoft will most likely continue referring to all new Windows versions as Windows 10, so the total market share is expected to increase to include all releases so far.

The other good news is that unsupported Windows keeps going down as well. Windows XP currently has a market share of 1.21%, almost as much as Linux with 1.25%, while Windows Vista doesn’t even make the charts, which means it has lower than 0.62%, which is the market share of last pace macOS 10.11.

With Microsoft insisting for Windows 7 users to move to Windows 10, the next few months should bring significant market share increases for the latter, but it’ll be interesting to observe how macOS benefits from this migration in the long term as well.