In October 2024, Windows 11 reached its all-time high market share, climbing to over 35.5%, according to Statcounter. This increase followed an unexpected decline when the operating system had been losing users for three months. Now, the story repeats itself. After dropping some market share in November, Windows 11 is once again in decline.
Statcounter's latest data indicates that Windows 11 lost over 1.48% points in two consecutive months. In December 2024, the operating system went from 34.94% to 34.1% (-0.84 points). Windows 10, on the other hand, reclaimed some of its lost users, even though it will be out of mainstream support in less than eleven months.
By now, Windows 10 remains the dominant Microsoft release, with a market share of 62.73% (+0.9 points). It will be interesting to see what happens to it as we get closer to October 2025, considering that many users cannot update to Windows 11 and that Microsoft does not want to negotiate its steep hardware requirements, such as TPM 2.0.
If you cannot update officially and you do not want to buy a new device yet, you can opt for Microsoft's official Extended Security Program that grants 12 months of extra updates for $30 or use third-party solutions, such as 0patch, to get up to five years of additional support (also not free). Another option is to bypass Windows 11's hardware requirements with various tricks.
If Statcounter's latest data is to be believed (Microsoft does not offer official Windows market share data), here is what the Windows market currently looks like:
- Windows 10: 62.73% (+0.9 points)
- Windows 11: 34.1% (-0.84 points)
- Windows 7: 2.4% (-0.07 points)
- Windows 8.1: 0.29% (-0.02 points)
- Windows XP: 0.23% (-0.02 points)
You can find more information from the latest Statcounter report on the official website.
47 Comments - Add comment