That’s according to Net Market Share, which tracks the operating systems reported to 40,000 popular sites in order to work out market share. The stats for February 2016 show Windows 10 growing around one percent from its 11.85 percent share in January, which in turn was a 1 percent climb from the December share of 9.96 percent.
Windows 10 only passed Windows XP for market share back in Janurary: in December of 2015 XP was still more popular. This month Windows 10 beat out its immediate predecessor: 9.83 percent of computer users use Windows 8.1, and 2.43 percent use Windows 8. Windows 10’s 12.82 percent means it already has a larger user share than those two versions combined.
| Operating System | User Share |
|---|---|
| Windows 7 | 52.34% |
| Windows 10 | 12.82% |
| Windows XP | 11.24% |
| Windows 8.1 | 9.83% |
| Mac OS X 10.11 | 3.72% |
| Windows 8 | 2.43% |
| Mac OS X 10.10 | 2.20% |
| Linux | 1.78% |
| Windows Vista | 1.66% |
| Mac OS X 10.9 | 0.87% |
| Mac OS X 10.6 | 0.34% |
| Mac OS X 10.8 | 0.28% |
| Mac OS X 10.7 | 0.28% |
| Windows NT | 0.12% |
| Mac OS X 10.5 | 0.05% |
| Mac OS X 10.4 | 0.02% |
| Windows 2000 | 0.01% |
| Windows 98 | 0.01% |
| Mac OS X (no version reported) | 0.00% |
Windows 10 has a long way to go before it is the most popular operating system, or even most popular version of Windows.
Windows 7 is by far the most popular desktop operating system out there, with 52.34 percent of the market. That means there are more Windows 7 computers out there than there are computers running OS X, Linux, and other versions of Windows combined.
But that should soon change: it seems like a good chunk of Windows 10’s growth comes at the expense of Windows 7. Back in July, Windows 7 made up 60 percent of desktop users, meaning that version of Windows is already losing ground quickly.
Considering that Windows 10 is a free update for Windows 7 and 8 users, and that basically all new devices being made right now are coming with Windows 10, expect to see this growth keep up for a while.
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