Microsoft has the tendency to rarely share the number of devices running Windows 10, but as we start a new year, the company decided to shed some light on some of the numbers. According to the software giant as of today, Windows 10 is now running on over 200 million “monthly active devices.”
This is by far the fastest adoption of a version of Windows ever. Since day one, the operating system got off to a great start. Microsoft officially released Windows 10 on July 29, 2015, and during the first day of launch the company reported 14 million devices using the latest version of the most popular operating system in the planet.
In August, the number of devices running Windows 10 reached to 75 million. Then in October, the company reported 110 million devices running the new operating system. Now, six months after, the number jumps to more than 200 million devices are actively running Windows 10 every month.
While making Windows 10 a free upgrade for computers running a genuine copy of Windows 8.1 or Windows 7 is significantly helping the fast adoption, 40% of new Windows 10 devices were activated during the holiday season, more specifically during last year’s Black Friday sales.
Microsoft is also reporting that Windows 10 is outpacing Windows 8 by nearly 400% and Windows 7 by nearly 140%.
In addition, we’re now starting to see more demand of Windows 10 “among enterprise and education customers”. The Redmond-based software company reveals that more than 76% of their enterprise customers are in “active pilots of Windows 10”, and there are over 22 million devices running Windows 10 on enterprise and education customers.
Here are some additional numbers to put in perspective: During the month of December, users have spent over 11 billion hours on Windows 10, and on Microsoft Edge, users have already spent over 44.5 billion minutes.
Since launch, users have asked Cortana over 2.5 million questions, and over 82 billion photos have been viewed using the Windows 10 Photo app.
And last year, gaming has grown noticeable in Windows 10 with over 4 billion hours of game play, and gamers have streamed more than 6.6 million hours of Xbox One games to Windows 10 PCs.
Thanks to Windows 10, Microsoft is now also seeing more growth in the Store, which should help to attract developers to build more apps for the operating system.
According to the company, the Windows Store has double the number of paid transactions from PCs and tablets during the holiday season. In December, 60% of paying customers were new to the Store, and during the same period, Windows 10 generated over 4.5 times more revenue per device, as compared to Windows 8.
Last year was one of the best year for Xbox One too. Although, the company didn’t unveil new sale numbers for its console, it has said that on December 28, 2015, “there were more fans using Xbox Live than any other day in Xbox history.” And with Windows 10 running on the console is also helping to make the “gaming better with a consistent gaming experience across devices by extending Xbox Live to every screen.”
Finally, Microsoft is announcing that with the success of Surface in the US and Canada, the Surface Book is coming to 10 new markets starting January 5th, 2015, including in Austria, Australia, UK, France, Germany, Switzerland, and New Zealand and it will be coming soon to Japan. And Surface Pro 4 is also coming to India in the coming weeks, but no specific release date has yet been announced.
Windows 10 is really gaining momentum, as we can see very impressive numbers, and it seems that Microsoft’s campaign to see 1 billion devices running Windows 10 within the next three years is off to an amazing start. Now that we’re entering into a new year, we can only expect that Microsoft will continue to further push Windows 10 and its devices.
Source Windows Blog
Mauro Huculak is a Windows How-To Expert who started Pureinfotech in 2010 as an independent online publication. He has also been a Windows Central contributor for nearly a decade. Mauro has over 14 years of experience writing comprehensive guides and creating professional videos about Windows and software, including Android and Linux. Before becoming a technology writer, he was an IT administrator for seven years. In total, Mauro has over 20 years of combined experience in technology. Throughout his career, he achieved different professional certifications from Microsoft (MSCA), Cisco (CCNP), VMware (VCP), and CompTIA (A+ and Network+), and he has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP for many years. You can follow him on X (Twitter), YouTube, LinkedIn and About.me. Email him at [email protected].