Windows 7 Holds 25% Of World Operating System Market Share, XP Just Over 50% Now

Windows 7 has been a resounding success for Microsoft. After just over one year of Windows 7’s release, it has helped the company avoid the economic downturn completely. Within three months after its launch the new OS had achieved 10% market share. One year on and that’s sitting at 25% according to figures released by StatCounter on first week of December 2010.

It’s not just picked up market share at the expense of Vista either. Windows XP has seen the largest drop in market share from almost 65% at the beginning of this year down to 51.7% today. Vista has dropped from around 23% in January to 16%.

It’s also interesting to not that the market share for Mac OS X and Linux has flatlined all year with OS X on around 5% and Linux around 1%. Despite the best efforts of Apple to grow market share this year they haven’t been successful though their most recent OS release early in the year was lacklustre and poorly received. Windows 7 has not been able to cut into Apple’s market share.

This would reinforce data throughout the year that showed Microsoft was selling a record number of retail copies of Windows 7, far more than any version of Windows before it, while PC sales worldwide have been down.

With the first service pack for Windows 7 due in Q1 2011, everyone can expect this figure to grow far more in the next year as businesses and corporations make the switch, and these increases will be at the expense of Windows XP which should be on 25% to 30% market share by the end of 2011.
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