Following explosive growth in January, Windows 10’s gains in users and usage decelerated last month according to figures from Net Applications and StatCounter.
The growth falloff varied by source, with one pegging it as the slowest rate since October, the second the most sluggish since November, and the third the most leisurely since December. All were in agreement, however, that Windows 10’s growth was significantly smaller than in January, in some cases by just half as much.
Data published Tuesday by analytics vendor Net Applications said Windows 10 powered 14.2% of all Windows PCs in February, a 1.1-point increase from the month prior. Net Applications measures user share – a proxy for the percentage of the global PC population running a particular operating system – by tallying unique visitors to clients’ websites.
Net Applications’ Windows 10 growth for last month was just half of the 2.2-point increase of January, and barely beat the 1-point gain of December.
On the plus side, Windows 10’s 14.2% user share put it ahead of the combined share of 2012’s Windows 8 and its 2013 upgrade, Windows 8.1, for the first time in Net Applications’ tracking.
According to Computerworld, Microsoft’s latest OS powered approximately 213 million systems and Microsoft’s oft-cited claim that 1.5 billion machines run some flavour of Windows. That would represent an increase of about 19 million in February, but would be significantly short of what Microsoft would likely tout, what with its assertion in early January that Windows 10 had been run on 200 million devices in the month prior.
Net Applications’ data includes only personal computers, and omits devices like tablets, smartphones and video game consoles that Microsoft counts because they either run Windows 10 or a variant.
A second data source – Ireland’s StatCounter – portrayed Windows 10’s February growth almost identically.
StatCounter, which tracks global usage share – a measure of activity rather than users, since it tallies web pages viewed — pegged Windows 10 at 14.9% of all personal computers for February, a 1.2-point gain, or about 70% of the growth the month before. It was the smallest increase by StatCounter’s measurement since November, when the firm tapped growth at just under 1.2 percentage points.
The assumption was that this would result in a major uptick in Windows 10’s growth, but by both accounts that hasn’t yet happened
IDG News Service
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