Microsoft"s goal of reducing the market share of Windows XP to just 13 percent worldwide by its support cut off date of April 8th is looking more and more like it will miss its target. Newly posted numbers from the research firm Net Applications shows that worldwide, Windows XP is still the second most popular operating system on PCs, claiming 31.22 percent of the market in November.
Those new numbers are nearly the same as what the firm showed for Windows XP in October, with 31.24 percent, and in September when it had 31.41 percent of the market. With just over four months to go, it would seem like the over 12-year old OS will be installed on a large percentage of PCs well after the April 8th cut off date.
Windows 8.1 officially launched in October, and Net Applications showed that in November the free update to Windows 8 claimed 2.64 percent of the OS market, compared to 1.72 in October. Windows 8 saw its share decrease to 6.66 percent in November, down from 7.52 percent in October. Combined, Windows 8 and 8.1 claimed 9.3 percent of the OS market share worldwide last month, which is only up slightly compared to 9.25 percent in October.
Windows 7 remains the number one PC OS and actually gained market share in November, rising to 46.64 percent compared to 46.42 percent in October. Windows Vista went down to 3.57 percent in November, compared to 3.63 in October. There"s a good possibility that Windows 8.1 could surpass Windows Vista in December.
Source: Net Applications | Image via Net Applications