Windows 10 market share stalls according to new data

Dave W. Shanahan

According to the latest NetMarketShare monthly statistics report, Windows 10 market share fell slightly from 25.30% in January to 25.19% last month. The slight drop is not exactly the ideal Windows 10 growth that Microsoft would like to see. Windows 7 saw the greatest increase in market share, growing from 47.20% to 48.41%. Windows XP is at 8.45%, followed by Windows 8.1, at 6.87% and Windows 8 at 1.65%.

Netmarketshare Windows Feburary 2017
NetMarketShare, February 2017.

All versions of Microsoft Windows still hold a commanding lead over all other operating systems at 91.76%, with Mac users a distant second at 6.19%, followed by Linux at 2.05%. In September 2016, Microsoft reported that Windows 10 was installed on more than 400 million devices. About three months ago, ZDNet predicted that Windows 10 could overtake Windows 7 by December 2017. After looking at the last month’s data though, it’s not clear if the new OS will actually reach this milestone this year.

NetMarketShare desktop trend by version February 2017
Desktop trends by version, NetMarketShare.

Obviously, Windows 10 will need to experience a more meteoric rise to overtake Windows 7 by December 2017. Microsoft is reportedly working on Windows 10 Cloud and Windows 10 on ARM to make Windows 10 PCs more competitive and affordable, but we still don’t know if these new SKUs will be released this year.