Windows 10's market share leaps in December

Global market share climbs to almost 10 per cent, Netmarketshare claims

Windows 10's global market share very nearly smashed the 10 per cent barrier last month, according to the latest Netmarketshare stats.

The site tracks the global operating system market for desktops and releases monthly updates. It claims that in December, the latest Microsoft OS reached 9.96 per cent global market share, up from nine per cent in November.

Just yesterday, Microsoft boasted about the progress of the new operating system, claiming it is now active on a massive 200 million devices globally. It said the enterprise space was particularly impressed with the product and that Windows 10 is enjoying an initial uptake that is five times faster than its predecessor Windows 8.

According to Netmarketshare, the combined market share for Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 fell to 13.06 per cent in December from 14.03 per cent the month before.

The share of popular OS Windows 7 also slumped slightly over that period, hitting 55.68 per cent from 56.11 per cent in November.

Ancient OS Windows XP enjoyed a perhaps unexpected boost in global market share, despite support for the operating system ending in 2014. In December, its market share climbed 10 10.93 per cent from 10.59 per cent in November - meaning it remains fractionally more popular globally than Windows 10 for now.

Yesterday Microsoft said it was "excited and humbled" by the response to Windows 10 so far and labelled it the most popular Windows yet.