Windows 11 keeps adding users, but Windows 10 still leads the way

In short: Windows 11 remains an operating system to love or hate, but more and more PC users are falling into the former camp. This, of course, doesn’t mean that Windows 10 is going away anytime soon, although Microsoft’s recent actions show just how badly it wants people to upgrade to a newer OS.

According to the latest statistics counter figures, Windows 11 achieved the largest global market share in January, reaching 18.1%. The share of Windows 10, in contrast, fell from 82.4% in December 2021 to 68.8% last month.

Statcounter data means that Windows 11 is still installed on less than 1 in 5 computers, but the operating system is slowly but surely increasing the number of users every month. It’s certainly popular with the Steam poll participants; Valve’s results from last month show that Windows 11 passed the 30% user mark as Windows 10 users dropped by -1.96%.

This does not mean that Windows 10 will disappear soon. Not only is it still the most popular desktop operating system, Statcounter data also shows that the share of users increased slightly to 68.8% last month.

This is even better news for Windows 10 fans when looking at the Firefox public data. report, which uses a representative sample of the population from the Firefox desktop release channel. Browser statistics show that Windows 10 usage continues to grow and peaked at 70.6% in January. Windows 11 doesn’t even have its own list; it is part of the category “Other Windows”, which accounts for only 1.3%.

Contributed by the Firefox Public Data Report.

Elsewhere in the Statcounter report, Windows 7 remains the third most popular Windows OS at 9.55%, followed by Windows 8.1 at 2.28% and, incredibly, Windows XP at 0.45%. Looking at all desktop operating systems, Windows accounts for 74.14%. It is followed by Mac OS with a share of 15.3%.

Windows doesn’t have the largest market share when it comes to operating systems for all devices. Its 29.2% share puts it behind Android (42.99%) but ahead of iOS (17.2%).

It was revealed last month that Microsoft will stop direct licensing for Windows 10 Home, Pro, and Workstation from January 31, 2023 in an attempt to bring more users to Windows 11. However, the company stressed that Windows 10 will continue to receive security updates. protect your PC from viruses, spyware and other malware until October 14, 2025