The December 2023 report from Statcounter shows that despite the recent release of Windows 11 version 23H2, the operating system"s market share remains relatively unchanged. Statcounter claims that roughly every fourth Windows PC connected to the internet runs Windows 11.
In December 2023, Windows 11 lost a small fraction of its user base. According to Statcounter, it went down from 26.63% to 26.54%
With Windows 10 scheduled to reach its end of life in less than two years from now, customers are slowly migrating from the aging operating system. However, hundreds of millions of customers are still perfectly fine using Windows 10. It holds approximately 67.46% of all Windows users, a 0.56 points decrease compared with November 2023.
Windows 11 and its higher-than-expected hardware requirements created a notable market segmentation. And with the next-generation Windows coming later this year, Microsoft has a tough decision to make: call it Windows 12 and help its partners" market departments sell more devices or prevent further segmentation by sticking to the current brand. According to the recent report, the company has yet to make up its mind.
As for older, now-dead Windows versions, they still have a fair share of users. Windows 7 is at 3.34%, Windows 8.1 is at 1.66%, and 0.64% still enjoy Windows XP, the operating system Microsoft quit supporting a decade ago. Windows 10 will join their ranks in October 2025, but Microsoft will let users get two extra years of paid extended security updates. Interestingly, regular consumers can also join the Extended Security Program. We do not know how much Microsoft plans to charge for that, but the end of Windows 10 support and its paid updates might become a big problem regardless of price.
You can find more information about the latest data from Statcounter on its official website. Click here to learn how the service gathers the data for its report.