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Windows 7 overtakes Windows XP global share

Summary: Windows XP has finally been displaced by current version Windows 7, according to global marketshare statistics.

Zack Whittaker

By for Between the Lines |

More market figures this morning, and Windows 7 has finally taken over Windows XP in worldwide usage shares, according to web tracking company StatCounter.

October's statistics show Windows 7's global marketshare stands at just over 41 percent, while Windows XP holds a hair's breadth away from 40 percent.

In between the two, Windows Vista -- long believed to be one of Microsoft's biggest mistakes in the operating system race -- dipped below 11 percent. Apple's Mac OS X remained steady, but rising slightly at nearly 7 percent.

(Source: StatCounter)

Windows XP, first released in 2001, and at over ten years old, is the world's most popular operating system to date. But its launch did not go without fault.

Volume license keys were acquired by hackers only weeks after the launch, which perpetuated widespread illegal piracy of newly released operating system in emerging markets, particularly. Microsoft also scaled down its launch party in the wake of the September 11th attacks, further impeding the highly anticipated marketing campaign by the company.

This year, however, shortly before marking its tenth anniversary, the ageing operating system dipped below the global 50 percent marketshare mark, making way for the newer Windows Vista successor, a client which left Microsoft dealing with a backlash from customers.

Onwards and upwards from Windows 7, we have the next-generation operating system, yet to be named officially but dubbed 'Windows 8', which is heavily focused on the upcoming post-PC world of tablet and slate computing.

Windows 8, while featuring the traditional desktop, masks it behind a wall of the Start screen; a Metro user-interface inspired full-screen view of applications and dynamically updating tiles, for which users can customise and personalise.

Windows 8 has already stirred controversy by displacing the desktop behind Metro, and lacking direction for the traditional PC market. While Windows 8 is designed for tablets in mind, but for PCs also, it remains clear that the current incarnation, Windows 7, will be difficult to shift, and should expect a high marketshare for some years to come.

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Topics: Software, Microsoft, Operating Systems, Windows

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31 comments
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  • Interesting, but

    I'd like to see a breakdown of corporate vs. personally owned systems. I suspect the growth is primarily due to people buy new personal systems rather than corporate upgrades of existing systems running XP. I'd also suspect that continued growth of Win7 numbers will be sluggish due to this corporate IT foot dragging.
    ancientprogrammer
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Windows 7 overtakes Windows XP global share

      @ancientprogrammer <br><br>I wonder how long the foot dragging will continue before the customers start to backlash against it? The time has come and gone where XP just needed to go away. It's funny to see businesses and schools scramble to upgrade as the services they offer, can't keep up with their customers. There's no point in being in business, if the services you offer no longer run on the customer's machines.<br><br>For example, my previous school dragged their feet in upgrading their student services. They were stuck using Blackboard's WebCT software, which <I>still</I> utilizes an outdated JRE build, and is pretty only optimized for Windows XP, IE6, or Firefox 3.5. Now that at least 99.9% of their current students are all running Windows 7, they're scrambling to ditch Blackboard and provide up to date services. Sad thing is too, I told them they need to get off their asses and upgrade, they didn't listen.
      The one and only, Cylon Centurion
      Reply Vote

    • RE: Windows 7 overtakes Windows XP global share

      @ancientprogrammer
      In the last year, many large companies have been switching over from XP to Win7. That may have helped a bit.
      kstap
      Reply Vote

    • RE: Windows 7 overtakes Windows XP global share

      @ancientprogrammer Agreed. It can be only an advertisement of <a href="http://www.webmastersitesi.com/windows/" rel="muse">windows</a> before windows 8 comes out.
      oyna
      Reply Vote

    • RE: Windows 7 overtakes Windows XP global share

      @ancientprogrammer It isn't foot dragging, it is compatibility issues! If App vendors got on board we wouldn't have issues but Most have compatibility issues with the newer versions of IE as they were still written for IE6.
      slickjim
      Reply Vote

    • RE: Windows 7 overtakes Windows XP global share

      @ancientprogrammer

      off course IT upgrades slower. Yet they are upgrading at a faster rate than ever and will only accelerate. win 7 is king. just deal with it.
      neonspark
      Reply Vote

  • RE: Windows 7 overtakes Windows XP global share

    I don't know if i can take it seriously when Linux has 0%
    tryggvi21
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Windows 7 overtakes Windows XP global share

    Hurrah, for Microsoft. Just goes to show what happens when they do things right!
    dsf3g
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Windows 7 overtakes Windows XP global share

      @dsf3g <br>What's so right about that? Win7 is so 'wonderful' it should have happened within the first 6 months after it's release.<br><br>I predict XP will still have 20% of the MS marketshare by the time it's plug is pulled in 2014. That's still a huge percentage of legacy users.
      ScorpioBlue
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Windows 7 overtakes Windows XP global share

        @ScorpioBlue

        Windows 7 should have repalced a user base built over 10 years within the first 6 months of its realease? LOL... maybe if it was a free upgrade!

        I've got an Apple iPod I've been using for about 5 years. I've got an Android phone and an Android tablet. And I've got laptops and destops at home running Xp and Windows 7. I am nobody's fanboy. I am simply a guy who recognizes a rock solid, well implemented product when hee sees one. And Windows 7 is fantastic. Microsoft deserves and gets kudos from me for win 7. (Vista was such a horrible fiasco that I was reluctant to even give Windows 7 a try when it first came out.)
        dsf3g
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Windows 7 overtakes Windows XP global share

        @ScorpioBlue Are you slow or something? Even the greatest OS in the world has to start slow and build up market share. It's not high up on the list of priorities to buy.
        Aerowind
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Windows 7 overtakes Windows XP global share

        @dsf3g and @Blowing Airwind<br><br>I remember the old days when we upgraded from Windows 95 to Windows 98 to Windows 2000. It didn't take <b>years</b> to do that like it seems to take now. You all wouldn't have known that because you were probably still in diapers back then.<br><br>XP has been around for too long (although I had no problem with that) to just dump it by the wayside. Even MS had to recognize that fact since they were still selling downgrade rights for it as recently as 2010. The ecosystem is too firmly in place for it, so it will take a long, long time for it to disappear. And it's MS's fault for that happening.<br><br>You don't like the situation then go blame them.
        ScorpioBlue
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Windows 7 overtakes Windows XP global share

        @ScorpioBlue
        you clearly don't understand the fundamentals of upgrading billions of pcs at once. It can't happen overnight. this isn't some miniscule population like the mac :)

        the numbers are just incredible, in the hundreds of millions. compare that to apple's sad 6 million upgrades. that's like a rounding error for windows 7 monthly sales.
        neonspark
        Reply Vote

    • RE: Windows 7 overtakes Windows XP global share

      @dsf3g

      Linux is not 0%. If you look closely, it is above the black line indicating 0%. It is quite small in worldwide market share, but not 0%.
      markpartin2000@...
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Windows 7 overtakes Windows XP global share

        @markpartin2000@... <br><br>Linux remains a hobbyist OS (with some foothold in the corporate sector). I don't see how that changes in the near future. What's a bigger surprise to me is that Mac OS share has not grown that much, given the popularity of the iPad. Looks like iPad sales aren't spurring Mac OS sales.
        dsf3g
        Reply Vote

  • We are still legacy Windows XP

    But I plan on refreshing to Windows 7 soon.
    The difference this time around will be to replace Fat Client Desktops with IGel Thin Client units running SPICE and move those instances of Windows into the Datacenter as VMs running on RedHat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops.

    This makes for central administration and thin client lock-down as we are a HIPAA shop.

    Each discrete Desktop VM is sandboxed in RedHat SELinux.

    FYI, RHEV costs out favorably over the competition, Citrix, VMware.
    Dietrich T. Schmitz *Your
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Windows 7 overtakes Windows XP global share

    No one should be surprised by this. From the moment Microsoft Windows 7 was released we all knew it was going to be the operating system with the largest market share. If you look at its improved security, functionality, and compatibility there is no question why people are moving to Windows 7 in droves.
    LoverockDavidson_-24231404894599612871915491754222
    Reply Vote

    • Fastest Growing OS of all time

      @LoverockDavidson_

      Agreed, it should come as no surprise that it is the fastest growing OS of all time in both the consumer and enterprise space. Whenever I talk to my corporate clients, I am surprised to see the rare XP device nowadays.
      Your Non Advocate
      Reply Vote

  • There isn't enough data for a real comparison

    the only reason xp is falling behind is quite simply due to the fact that 1) xp is no longer sold, 2) new computers are being purchased and 3) they are designed to use the newer o.s.'s.

    if however, xp was still on the market and shelves and the mfg's provided hardware drivers for xp to use on the newer equipment,

    then a real comparison could be made as to whether which is o.s. is more popular, ie win7 or xp.

    personally, i think win7 would lose the contest but not by much.
    databaseben
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Windows 7 overtakes Windows XP global share

      @databaseben@...

      I don't think so... Enterprise and Volume Licenses allow for downgrade to XP so technically you can still get it if you need it. Just not on the consumer side. There are situations (usually for business and other large organizations) that may need XP for legacy software/hardware support but those are decreasing. With Application virtualization it is fairly easy to deliver those legacy apps to Windows 7 using things like APP-V and other virtualization technologies. Working for a school district we have many applications that were designed and released in the 90's and early 2000's that are essentially 16bit apps that will not work with Windows Vista or 7 natively. With App-V we can deliver those apps seamlessly and they operate as if they were installed on the computer.

      The reason for the increase is because businesses, schools, and other organizations have been migrating to the OS over the past year. I know many schools that just started their new fiscal school year in July that have nearly got all their machines running Windows 7 now. The school district I work for did the same thing. Last year we had a couple hundred running it out of the 2700 workstations we have. This year we have over 2000 running Windows 7 and the only ones still on XP are machines that are in the 6 - 9 year old range for the most part.
      bobiroc
      Reply Vote
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