Consumers Finally Dropping XP In Favour Of Windows 7
10 year old OS hits all time low with
just 46.5 percent of the Windows PC market
PC users are at last ditching XP in favour
of Windows 7. According to data collected by web metrics firm Net Applications,
just 46.5 percent of all the world’s Windows PCs were running the 10 years old
XP operating system in December. This is 2.4 percent less than the previous
month, and a new all-time low. Furthermore, between September and December last
year, the number of Windows XP users fell by nearly 6 percent from 50.5
percent. And in the past 12 months, the operating system has lost 12.4 percent
of all its users.
Windows 7 has been the beneficiary of XP’s
decline, gaining the same percentage of users as XP lost in December.
Microsoft’s most recent OS now accounts for 37 percent of the world’s Windows
PCs.
In both 2009 and 2010, XP’s share fell 40
to 48 percent more in January than it did in the previous month most likely due
to purchases of new PCs running Windows 7 in the post Christmas sales. With
that in mind, XP’s share could have plummeted by as much as 3.5 percent in
January this year; it will be a while before these figures are released.
The acceleration of XP’s decline suggests
that users have heard Microsoft’s message that the OS should be retired. In
July last year, Microsoft told customers it was “time to move on” from XP,
reminding everyone that support would end in April 2014. Before that, the internet
Explorer team had dismissed XP as the “lowest common denominator” when they
explained why it wouldn’t run version 9.0 of the browser.
Projections based on Net Applications’ data
indicate that Windows 7 will become the most widely used Windows OS in April
this year, which is several months earlier than previous estimates. By the time
Windows 8 debuts, with October seeming the most likely on sale date, Windows 7
will have captured between 50 and 52 percent of the OS market.
