The percentage of Windows 7 users worldwide exceeded the share held by Windows Vista for the first time last month, according to Net Applications. Despite Microsoft’s withdrawal of active support, however, the web metrics firm’s latest data demonstrates that Windows XP continues to be the OS of choice for the majority of PC users worldwide.
Windows 7 beat out Vista in July with a 14.46 percent market share, followed by Vista at 14.32 percent. Released at the end of January 2007, Vista reached its market share peak of 18.83 percent in October 2009 when Windows 7 was commercially introduced. “With 175 million licenses sold to date, [Windows 7] is the fastest-selling operating system ever,” said Microsoft CFO Peter Klein last month.
Incredibly High Satisfaction
Enterprise adoption of Windows 7 is accelerating, driven by an increase in volume licensing to businesses plus retail sales, noted Microsoft Director of Investor Relations Bill Koefoed. “Importantly, customer satisfaction for Windows 7 is incredibly high at 94 percent and businesses are deploying Window 7 in the enterprise,” Koefoed said.
However, Windows XP remains the world’s leading operating system by far. Released in August 2001 and with more than 400 million copies in use by January 2006, Windows XP held a global market share of more than 61.8 percent in July — double the share of Vista and Windows 7 combined, according to Net Applications.
Overall, Microsoft attained a 91.3 percent share of the global OS market in July, followed by the Mac OS at 5.06 percent, and Linux at slightly less than one percent. The market shares for the Mac and Linux have remained relatively flat this year.
Microsoft executives expect sales at the company’s Windows division to grow roughly in line with PC shipments during the current quarter and over the next 12 months. Given that…