Windows 10 Pro takes majority of business OS market for first time - Context

Microsoft sees Windows 10 Pro command 57 per cent of its Windows business PC market in January

Windows 10 Pro took the majority of the Windows western Europe business PC market for the first time in January, according to Context.

The analyst said that Windows 10 Pro accounted for 57 per cent of all Windows business PCs sold through European distributors in January - up nine percentage points from December 2016.

Windows 10 Pro became the dominant player in the market last December, but has now taken over half of the market for the first time.

Windows 10 Pro continued to pull away from the downgradable Windows 10 version - which saw its market share drop eight percentage points to 38 per cent - having surpassed it in November last year. The downgradable version allows users to revert from Windows 10 to Windows 7.

"Now 18 months into its life cycle, this latest rise has brought adoption rates for Windows 10 Pro closer to those reached by its most popular predecessor after a similar time span", said Marie-Christine Pygott, senior analyst at Context.

Growth rate

The increase in January saw Windows 10 Pro continue its consistent growth from late 2016.

The OS saw market share of 27 per cent in October; 37 per cent in November; and 48 per cent in December - before crossing the 50 per cent mark last month.

Windows 10 Pro's market share in the UK was above average, coming in at 69 per cent. Germany was the only country where it saw its market share stay at less than half, coming in at 43 per cent.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said on an earnings call last month, a transcript of which can be found on Seeking Alpha, that Windows 10's adoption by enterprises has been "perhaps the best we have seen for a new release of Windows" - driven partially by its security and manageability credentials, as well as enterprise desires to move to an as-a-service consumption model.

"In addition to [security and manageability], there are two other things that are increasingly becoming fairly relevant in the adoption cycle, which is moving to both Office 365 and Windows 10 and getting essentially to this new frontier for productivity, which is an always up-to-date operating system which is secure, and an always up-to-date Office experience that is a SaaS service," he said.

"We're increasingly seeing that resonate, not just in small business and some of the high-tech industry as it has been in the past, but now even in the regulated parts of the enterprise, so we are very excited about that."