Windows 10 was already the most used operating system among Steam users, but it was still trailing Windows 7 among the general public for a long time. Now the latest statistics from NetMarketShare for the month of December have revealed that the OS has finally surpassed the marketshare of Windows 7.
Over the last year, the share of Windows 7 was within striking distance of Windows 10, but December finally saw the operating system being overtaken by the latter with a lead of approximately three percent. The gains could be due to the new PCs sold over the holiday season, but the numbers can only be expected to improve from here on as Windows 7, which was released a decade ago this comiung July, is in its final year of free extended support from Microsoft.
The company recently confirmed that Windows 10 has an install base of 700 million devices, which includes PCs, laptops, tablets, Xbox and various IoT devices. The marketshare gain in December will however will not be sufficient to estimate the increase in actual device numbers as the NetMarketShare statistics are largely based on data gathered from web browsers and net applications.
Other operating systems such as macOS, Linux and Windows 8 / 8.1 didn"t see significant changes among them, but it"s worth noting that macOS 10.14 is now more popular than Windows XP and Windows 8.1 and as a result is now among the top five operating system versions.
Source: NetMarketShare via MyBroadband