UK has world's lowest percentage of XP devices - research

New research finds UK leads Europe, Asia and the Americas in XP migration

The UK has one of the lowest percentages of devices running Windows XP in the world, according to new figures.

Data from market tracker Stat Counter shows that between January and February this year, the percentage of UK devices – laptops, desktops, mobiles and consoles – running XP stood at just 6.5 per cent. The figure is significantly lower than the European and global averages of 13.37 per cent and 13.52 per cent respectively.

Asia had the highest regional percentage of devices running XP between January and February this year, at 16.69 per cent, while the North America and South America regions' figures respectively stood at 8.54 per cent and 15.94 per cent over the same period.

In just a few weeks, Microsoft is set to end support for the 13-year-old OS and since the one-year countdown kicked off, a migration campaign has swept through the UK channel.

The Stat Counter figures, which are compiled from data from more than three billion devices globally, suggest that the campaign is working. A year ago (between January 2013 and February 2013) the percentage of XP devices in the UK stood at 12.81 per cent, almost double today's figure.

Earlier this month, similar figures from Net Applications showed that XP had a much larger presence – appearing on 29.23 per cent of all devices – but its figures track the global market and not that of the UK specifically.

Microsoft declined to comment directly on the Net Applications stats last week, but told CRN that businesses that have yet to migrate and will miss the April deadline could be a golden opportunity for the channel.