Microsoft took a brief moment to share with Build 2016 attendees the not-so-surprising momentum of Windows 10 adoption and usage. Terry Myerson, Microsoft’s executive vice president of the Windows and Devices group, took the stage during the company’s Day One keynote to highlight that Windows 10 is now on over 270 million devices with over 5 billion visits to the Windows 10 Store to date.
After the barrage of stats, presentations and demonstrations on and about Windows 10 that have accompanied the 72-hour developer conference marathon, we’re now greeted with analytics firm NETMARKETSHARE’s monthly marketing trends report.
Needless to say, much of what Microsoft claimed during Build 2016 remains true. According to NETMARKETSHARE’s report, Microsoft’s Windows operating system maintains a 90.45% share among desktops with Mac coming in at 7.77% and Linux rounding out the section with 1.78%.
As far as specific operating versions are concerned, Windows 7 remains a force to be reckoned with at 51.89% of all desktop shares, but Windows 10 has finally unseated Windows XP at the number two spot with an impressive 14.15% market share for the month of March. To put things in perspective, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 combine for a little under 12% market share having been on the market for over three years. Mac OSX divvies up the remaining share between Linux with version 10.10 taking 2.06% and 10.11 accounting for 4.05% while Linux hangs to its 1.78% influence in the market.
Moving on to mobile presents a stark contrast to Windows’ dominance on the desktop. On mobile, Windows accounts for just 2.54% of the operating system pie while iOS takes the second spot with 31.76% and Android hoards the remaining lion share of 60.99%. Investigating the numbers further shows swapping trend in iOS and Android adoption, where iOS has steadily dropped from its 41.55% market share in July of 2015 to just 31.76% as of March 2016 and Android increasing its lead from 51.12% in July 2015 to 60.99% this month. All the while Windows Phone has teetered ever so slightly from 2.60% in August 2015 to 2.54% in March of 2016.
When it comes to browsers, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer remains at the top with 43.4% usage for the month of March trailed by Chrome at 30.09% for desktops. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 11 accounts for 23.18% of usage while its newer Edge is offering only post a 3.55% market usage, indicating that even on the newer Windows 10 installs, people are choosing IE11 or Chrome as their default browsing experience. On the mobile front, Apple’s Safari comes in at a surprisingly high 41.88% over Chrome at 27.77% and the default Android browser with 15.93% of usage.
Lastly, NETMARKESHARE’s report shows Google’s search engine sitting at 67.78% global usage while Bing trails in a distant second with 13.27% of desktops. As far as mobile is concerned, the results are very similar to Google dominating mobile search results and the category of “other” (presumably other locally sourced efforts) putting up a defense at 38.94%.
When it comes to desktops, Microsoft appears to be king still, however, in mobile, the company has a lot of ground to cover. With the announcements offered during its Build 2016 developer conference, it seems the company is looking to leapfrog mobile and move into contextual searches as well artificial intelligence as the next market share race it thinks it could dominate. Only time will tell.
