With the release of Windows 8.1 in October, February was the fourth full month of availability for Microsoft’s latest operating system version. While Windows 8.1 is certainly growing steadily and eating into Windows 8’s share, the duo only managed to end 2013 with 10 percent market share, and so far in 2014 that number has barely budged.
The latest market share data from Net Applications shows that Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 have gained a combined 0.10 percentage points (from 10.58 percent to 10.68 percent). More specifically, Windows 8 fell 0.25 percentage points (from 6.63 percent to 6.38 percent), while Windows 8.1 gained 0.35 percentage points (from 3.95 percent to 4.30 percent).
Meanwhile, Windows 7 slipped 0.18 percentage points (from 47.49 percent to 47.31 percent). Unlike in November, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 have now done better combined than Windows 7 for three months straight, but the differences are minute.
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Windows 8, which saw its biggest gain in August at 2.01 percentage points and its biggest loss in November at 0.87 percentage points, continues to slip. All Windows users are being encouraged to get the latest and greatest, and Microsoft is making the upgrade path to Windows 8.1 just a free download away for Windows 8 users.
Going back to earlier versions, Windows Vista fell 0.20 percentage points (from 3.30 percent to 3.10 percent). Windows XP meanwhile managed to regain some share after falling below the 30 percent mark at the end of 2013, increasing 0.30 percentage points (from 29.23 percent to 29.53 percent).
In 2013, Windows lost share every month except for March, July, and November. So far in 2014, Windows slipped a bit in January, and gained 0.12 percentage points (from 90.72 percent to 90.84 percent) in February. OS X stayed flat at 7.68 percent, while Linux lost what Windows gained (to 1.48 percent).
Net Applications uses data captured from 160 million unique visitors each month by monitoring some 40,000 websites for its clients. StatCounter is another popular service for watching market share moves; the company looks at 15 billion page views. To us, it makes more sense to keep track of users than of page views, but if you prefer the latter, the corresponding data is available here (Windows 8 is at 7.3 percent).
See also – IE10 falls below IE9 in market share, Firefox hits 60-month low, and Chrome again gains the most
Top Image Credit: Mario Tama / Getty Images
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