When Microsoft launched Windows 10 in 2015, the company made no secret of its aspirations to distribute the operating system to as many devices as possible. Early reports indicated that users were upgrading to Windows 10 in droves, but new data suggests that this shift is slowing down.
The latest report on OS usage from NetMarketShare states that 22.59 percent of computers use Windows 10 as of October. That sounds rather healthy, but it is less impressive when you take into account that its reported market share as of September was 22.53 percent.
Windows 10 only managed to make a 0.06-percent increase over the course of a calendar month. In that same span of time, the years-old Windows 7 jumped from a 48.27 percent share to a 48.38 share, according to a report from MS Power User. Obviously, being beaten out by an earlier version of the same OS is not a particularly good sign.
Upon its release, Windows 10 was offered for free, which helped it get off to a good start in terms of convincing Windows users to upgrade. However, the free upgrade program was phased out earlier in 2016, which will have contributed to the growth of its market share slowing down.
Of course, things do not look so bleak for Windows 10 when you compare its market share with rival operating systems, rather than previous versions of Windows. Mac OS X 10.11 only accounts for 2.74 percent of desktop computers and Linux is only installed on 2.18 percent of systems.
That being said, there are big questions to be asked about whether Windows 10 can continue to grow in years to come. Microsoft recently announced a host of brand new features set to be introduced with next spring’s Creators Update, but it remains to be seen whether this kind of content drop will translate to more users adopting Windows 10.
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