Windows 11 has been out for over a year, and it continues to eat away at the market share pie like a turtle nibbling on a strawberry. That pie still consists mostly of Windows 10 users, but Windows 11 is making slow and steady progress. This glacial advancement is revealed in Statcounter’s latest figures for operating system market share: Windows 11 now resides on 18.1% of Windows users’ machines globally, which is the highest so far. It has a long way to go to dethrone Windows 10, though. That beloved OS still rules the roost with 68.75% of the market.
The latest figures show Windows 11 gaining market share from all other versions of Windows. As of January 2023, in addition to the above numbers for 10 and 11, Windows 7 is still holding onto 9.6% of the PC market. From there, it drops off dramatically. Windows 8.1 holds a sliver at just 2.3%, but that might change soon, as Microsoft ended support a week ago. The OG Windows 8 is barely surviving at 0.6%.
Also, 0.45% of Windows users are still on XP, somehow. Support for Windows XP ended over eight years ago, people! Come on. We hope those machines are air-gapped for their owners’ safety.
Statecounter OS market share as of January 2023.
Those global numbers are similar to those for North America. Here in the states, Windows 11 is at 21.2% compared with 69.4% for Windows 10. One big difference between the global numbers and those for the US is Windows 10 picked up global market share last month. The numbers show it ticked up a little over 1%, seemingly taking it away from Windows 7. During that time period, Windows 11 grabbed another percentage point, too.
The fact that Windows 11 is now on over 20% of US Windows users’ computers is good news for Microsoft. Though the OS has been controversial for many reasons, people seem to be slowly warming up to it. Microsoft is also doing all it can to ween people off Windows 10, such as deciding to stop selling new licenses for it at the end of January. You can still buy a key for Windows 10 from a third party, just not from Microsoft.
Also, US market share numbers are surprisingly similar to those in the latest Steam Survey, as TechSpot points out. Windows 10 64-bit is still the most-used OS on Steam at 63.4%. However, Windows 11 is already up to 30% and gaining.
Back in November 2022, Windows 11 was sitting at 15%, with Windows 10 at 71%. That means Windows 11 is clawing back about 1% of market share a month, and it only has about 50 points left until it overtakes Windows 10. Doing some napkin math, that means sometime around 2027. However, with Windows 10 losing support in 2025, that’ll certainly accelerate the process. Although, by then, we’ll probably already be using Windows 12.
Now read:
- Microsoft Is Planning a Modern Redesign of File Explorer for Windows 11
- Microsoft Testing PC Game Pass Widget for Windows 11
- Microsoft Testing ‘Taskbar Overflow’ Feature for Power Users
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