With its launch in July 2015, Microsoft expected its latest operating system to reach the milestone of one billion active devices within two to three years, largely thanks to a free upgrade offer from Windows 7 and 8.1. While Microsoft has since reined in its expectations in that regard, Windows 10 has been on a healthy upward trend in terms of market share and may soon overtake its elder sibling, Windows 7.
Current market trends from Statcounter show that Windows 10 will be able to eclipse Windows 7 by the end of the year. Standing at market shares of 43.99% and 39.3%, respectively, Windows 7 and 10 are already neck and neck in terms of market share. However, Windows 10 has maintained a rate of increase of more than 1% in the past few months - 1.43% for the last month - and if this trend continues, combined with Windows 7"s monthly decline (1.11% this month) in market share, Statcounter estimates we may see a new king of the PC market before the end of the year.
Extrapolating for the next three months with the same rate of increase, we may see Windows 10 occupy 43.59% of the Windows market share, while Windows 7 would have dropped down to 40.66% by the new year. Indeed, the rate of increase may, in fact, be larger than current figures in the month of October due to the release of the Fall Creators Update for Windows 10, which may prompt many users to upgrade from older versions of Windows for the added features and security.
Via: TechRadar