Windows 10 continues to make headway, Windows 7 remains on top

Recently, Microsoft’s Windows 10 saw a significant bump in usage share during the month of May 2016, going from 14.35% in April to 17.43% last month. The operating usage share numbers come from data collected by Net Applications over the course of consecutive months.

Back in late March, Microsoft’s lead on the Windows 10 development team Terry Myerson took to the company’s keynote stage during Build 2016 to proclaim that Windows 10 had then reached 300 million active users. The 300 million mark is not a number so quickly forgotten by the PC industry and as proof, Net Application’s data is reaffirming that Windows 10 upgrades are happening across the board despite the slow erosion in PC sales.

Other data points to a glacial-pace decline in Windows 7 usage, dropping a whopping twentieth percentage point from 48.79% in the month of April to the 48.57% in May. Windows 10 gains appear to be coming from users of Windows 8 and 8.1 which saw a drop from 9.16% to 8.77% in May. Net Applications numbers seem to indicate that Windows 7 users are either content with their older version of Windows rather than the Windows 8.1 crowd looking to upgrade beyond the arguably confusing mess that was hidden UI elements and a tablet-centric focus of the desktop.

Surprisingly enough, Windows XP happened to outshine Window 8.1 in usage share, bringing in a slightly higher percentage of users at 10.09%, up from April’s charted 9.66% share.

While some of Microsoft’s practices to get users to Windows 10 upgrades are still under question and scrutiny, Net Application data is showing that the company is on a steady track to get its core user base on its One Windows operating system.

Microsoft still has yet to fully clarify what and how it will deal with the imminent end to Free Windows 10 upgrades as well as how the company plans to pitch. However, the continued adoption of Windows is still a long way from being readily within Microsoft’s grasps.