How much has Windows 8 bombed with PC users? So much that an obsolete operating system that had its technical support cut off nearly a full year ago still has more global users.
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Recall that it was on April 8th last year that Microsoft ended support for Windows XP, which meant that users stopped getting any more automatic updates and were no longer able to download Microsoft Security Essentials for their PCs anymore. Microsoft made a big push to get people to move away from XP for security reasons and upgrade to newer software, particularly to Windows 8 or 8.1.
Despite this push, however, the biggest gainer over the past year has been Windows 7… and it’s not even close.
According to NetMarketShare, at this time last year Windows 8 and 8.1 had a combined market share of 11.3%, Windows 7 had a market share of 48.8% and Windows XP had a market share of 27.5%. One year later, NetMarketShare’s numbers inform us that Windows 8 and 8.1 now have a combined market share of 14%, Windows 7 has a market share of 58% and XP has a market share of 16.9%.
Source: NetMarketShare
So to recap: Over the past year, Windows 8.x’s market share has gained 2.7 percentage points while Windows 7’s has gained 9.2 percentage points. Not only that but an operating system that hasn’t received technical support for nearly a year still has a higher market share than Windows 8.x.
We’ve said this before, but Windows 10 really can’t come out soon enough.
