After Nearly A Year Of Launch, Microsoft Says 350 Million Devices Now Run On Windows 10

Microsoft has announced a series of updates to Windows 10 to celebrate the first year anniversary of its latest operating system. It also announced that in just a little under a year, 350 million devices now run on Windows 10 with over 135 billion in usage hours. This comes as the biggest software company in the world predicted that a billion devices are expected to run on its Windows 10 software within three years of release being 2018. Since its official launch on the 29th of July 2015, Microsoft announced usage milestones leading to the 350 million figure we now have in about a year.

First a record 14 million devices ran on Windows 10 in just about 24 hours of release. Another report put that figure at 67 million in about 48 hours from launch date.

By October of 2015, that figure stood at 110 million devices with 8 million business PCs running the operating system.

Having said that, in the weekend of  Windows 8 release, Microsoft said  4 million users upgraded to Windows 8 and one month later, that figure was 40 million and in six months that figure was put at 100 million by Microsoft.

Windows 7 sales performed nearly similarly to Windows  8  especially within its first six months of release. According to a Wikipedia publication, as of  July 2009, in only eight hours, pre-orders of Windows 7 at amazon.co.uk surpassed the demand which Windows Vista had had in its first 17 weeks It became the highest-grossing pre-order in Amazon’s history, surpassing sales of the previous record holder, the seventh Harry Potter book.  After 36 hours, 64-bit versions of Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate editions sold out in Japan. Two weeks after its release its market share had surpassed that of Snow Leopard, released two months previously as the most recent update to Apple’s Mac OS X operating system. According to Net Applications, Windows 7 reached a 4% market share in less than three weeks; in comparison, it took Windows Vista seven months to reach the same mark.) As of February 2014, Windows 7 has a market share of 47.49% according to Net Applications; in comparison, Windows XP had a market share of 29.23%.

On March 4, 2010, Microsoft announced that it had sold more than 90 million Windows 7 licenses. By April 23, 2010, Windows 7 had sold more than 100 million copies in six months, which made it Microsoft’s fastest-selling operating system. As of June 23, 2010, Windows 7 has sold 150 million copies which made it the fastest selling operating system in history with seven copies sold every second. Based on worldwide data taken during June 2010 from Windows Update 46% of Windows 7 PCs run the 64-bit edition of Windows 7.  On July 12, 2011, the sales figure was refined to over 400 million end-user licenses and business installations. As of July 9, 2012, over 630 million licenses have been sold; this number includes licenses sold to OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) for new PCs.

Based on the figures provided above, it’s safe to say Windows 10 has outperformed both of the last Windows releases at least for now but with PC shipments on the decline, how will the operating system fare especially with Microsoft’s own prediction that a billion devices would run on its latest operating system and this is not to even include the decline in sales of Windows mobile devices. Actually while the outlook may look dim, analysts believe Windows 10 could actually be the hope the market badly needs. It is projected that IT spending will increase into 2016 and beyond and this could mean that the Windows market share.