Windows 10 crushes the competition while users ditch Windows 7
Windows 10 is now on the majority of PCs according to stats from both major analytics firms
Windows 10 has passed something of a milestone in that according to both major analytics firms which compile stats on OS adoption, it is now present on more PCs than it isn’t on – in other words, Windows 10 has exceeded a 50% market share, going by stats from both firms.
Previously, the statistics from Net Applications showed Windows 10 hadn’t yet reached the 50% mark. In July, last month, it was on 48.86%, but in the latest figures for August, the OS has jumped over 2% to reach 50.99%.
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Rival analytics firm Statcounter recorded Windows 10 as cresting the 50% mark back in September 2018, and now has it pegged with a 59.82% market share. But whichever figures you’re going by now, Windows 10 is on more than half of the PCs out there, which will obviously be welcome news for Microsoft.
According to Net Applications, in August, Windows 7 dropped to 30.34%, a loss of 1.49%. Statcounter has Windows 7 on a 30.92% market share, so both firms agree pretty much bang-on when it comes to the older OS, which is dwindling away.
End of the road
It isn’t really surprising to see Windows 7 dropping away, and Windows 10 making healthy progress, when you consider that the end-of-life deadline for Windows 7 is rapidly approaching. And obviously Windows 8 is an irrelevant consideration at this point, being present on just under 5% of machines now according to Net Applications.
As the year continues, and that January 2020 deadline gets even closer for Windows 7 users, we would expect the market share of Windows 10 to make some further impressive gains.
The last statistics we heard from Microsoft claimed that Windows 10 has now been installed on over 800 million devices worldwide, and the OS will likely reach the magic billion number at some stage next year. That is, of course, well behind the initial target date Microsoft trumpeted.
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Via Venturebeat
Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).