Windows 10 Passes 1 Billion Monthly Active Users

Microsoft’s Windows 10 operating system has passed a significant milestone, the OS is running on more than 1 billion PCs around the globe. This is a considerable benchmark for the company and shows that customers are migrating from Windows 7 to 10 but you can expect this number to continue to climb higher.

Microsoft has previously talked about there being 1.5 billion PCs running around the globe and with Windows 10 running on 1 billion of those devices, there is still room for the figure to climb higher. According to Net Marketshare, Windows 10 is running on about 60% of PCs with Windows 7 holding on to about 25% of the desktop PC market – these figures are rough and are not intended to be an exact representation.

The devices that are still running Windows 7 are likely large enterprises that have yet to fully migrate or quite simply, unsupported devices. Considering Microsoft is charging a premium to support legacy Windows 7 hardware, I would expect that figure to drop quickly going forward for those that are paying for extended support.

Microsoft is also saying that 100% of the Fortune 500 is now using Windows 10. In addition, the company says that there are 17.8 million Insiders currently testing Windows 10 but I do wonder how many of them are active participants as Microsoft as previously slanted stats like these with Edge and Cortana in their positive favor.

Microsoft had initially hoped to reach the 1 billion figure with Windows 10 during FY18 (the company is now in FY20) but the demise of its mobile platform stalled the initially expected growth of the platform.