Windows XP down to less than half of world's PCs

While Windows 7 marches on...

Microsoft's Windows XP operating system is now being used on less than half of PCs around the world.

According to the latest figures from Net Applications, Windows XP had 49.7 per cent of the global OS market in July 2011.

In June, the OS had 51 per cent of the market while it held almost 62 per cent back in July 2010.

Windows XP's market share is declining but Windows 7 - above - is filling the gapImage: Seth Rosenblatt/CNET

Windows Vista, released between XP and Windows 7, also declined to just 9.3 per cent market share in July 2011, down from a still relatively meagre 14.3 per cent a year earlier.

Meanwhile, Microsoft's current desktop OS, Windows 7, continues to grow its market share, hitting 27.9 per cent in July 2011 compared to 14.5 per cent one year ago.

Windows 7 is Microsoft's fastest-selling OS ever according to the company and hit 350 million licence sales in April.

Analyst house Gartner has recommended that companies make the transition to Windows 7 before Microsoft ends its official support of XP in April 2014 to avoid compatibility issues as new applications increasingly fail to work with the older OS.

Meanwhile, Mac OS X remains very much in the minority of total operating system market share but is still growing, reaching 3.8 per cent in July, compared to 2.5 per cent 12 months before.