An awful lot of people, from folks in Redmond to hardware manufacturers the world over, wanted Microsoft’s newest OS to race off the track the moment it was released on October 26 last year.
While the numbers left a bit to be desired in the first few weeks, Windows 8 is slowly and surely finding its place on computers the world over.
The newest statistics from Net Applications show that Windows 8 finally crossed the 2 percent mark on January 6, and now controls a 2.06 percent market share worldwide.
Now, 2 percent may not be particularly striking, but still this is enough to make Windows 8 the fifth most popular OS in the world, such is the stately presence it commands. In fact, this puts it within striking distance of Apple’s Mac OS X 10.8 and its market share of 2.37.
The good old Windows 7 started the New Year in lead position with an imposing share of 45.15 percent, and the operating system Microsoft secretly loves to hate, Windows XP, still hovers at 39.08 percent, no mean feat for an 11-year old operating system.
The third place is inhabited by a certain OS that goes by the name of Windows Vista with a 5.10 percent market share, and Microsoft’s latest will surely have eyes on for that position as it looks to go past Mac OS X 10.8 in the coming weeks.
Microsoft recently boasted figures of 60 million licenses sold for Windows 8, but it is apparent a lot of people just bought the licenses to make the most of the upgrade offer the company had put up.
A lot of them are, and will be upgrading to the newest platform in the coming months, which should see the market share of Windows 8 go up. The next few months should be interesting, with Surface Pro also seeing the light of the day in a few weeks.
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Interesting fact to note from the statistic, Windows RT only hold 0.02% of marketshare.
Aye. Still it’s competing with the big guns now.