This morning, Microsoft announced that Windows 10 is now officially on more than 200 million devices worldwide, which is an increase of 90 million since their last tally back in October. Perhaps more interesting is the fact that 40% of new Windows 10 devices first became active around Black Friday (post Thanksgiving in the U.S.) signaling that consumers seem to be buying new hardware.
Microsoft has confirmed with Windows Central that the 200 million number does include the New Xbox One Experience, which rolled out in November. That update puts Windows 10 on the Xbox One as well for millions of people and breaking new ground for Microsoft.
Microsoft is quick to point out that Windows 10 is on "the fastest growth trajectory" of any version of Windows "outpacing Windows 7 by nearly 140% and Windows 8 by nearly 400%" (that previous figure is especially poignant and revealing).
Besides the consumer space, Microsoft is also evidently reporting traction in enterprise. The company says that "76% of our enterprise customers are in active pilots of Windows 10" and 22 of those 200 million devices are enterprise and education customers. That number is perhaps more relevant than the consumer figure, and enterprise licenses pay Microsoft more in the long term. It is also unusual as traditionally big firms would pass on the most current version of Windows and instead wait to adopt it later in its life cycle. Evidently, Microsoft's outreach to enterprise is working.
Other Windows 10 stats
While 200 million is an impressive number, there are a lot of equally-staggering numbers behind Windows 10. Bolstering Microsoft's argument that developers should not ignore the Windows Store, they've also revealed some additional incredible figures on usage:
- People have spent over 11 billion hours on Windows 10 in December alone, spending more time on Windows than ever before
- Over 44.5 billion minutes spent in Microsoft Edge across Windows 10 devices in just the last month.
- Over 2.5 billion questions asked of Cortana since launch.
- Around 30% more Bing search queries per Windows 10 device vs. prior versions of Windows.
- Over 82 billion photos viewed within the Windows 10 Photo app.
- Gaming continues to grow on Windows 10: in 2015, gamers spent over 4 billion hours playing PC games on Windows 10. Gamers have streamed more than 6.6 million hours of Xbox One games to Windows 10 PCs.
- 2x increase in the number of paid transactions from PC and tablet customers this holiday season.
- In December alone, 60% of paying customer were new to the Store.
- In December, Windows 10 generated more than a 4.5x increase in revenue per device, as compared to Windows 8 Clearly, Microsoft seems to be having a lot of success with Windows 10. The OS is their fastest growing, new hardware is being sold, and even enterprise is jumping on board relatively early. In fact, with the 200 million number, Microsoft is already 20 percent at their goal of 1 billion devices running Windows 10 in the next few years. All of that done in the first five months since its release in late July.
This week at CES 2016 we expect to see many of Microsoft's partners, including Dell, HP, and Lenovo, to announce even more PCs, tablets and other new form factors all running Windows 10.
There is no doubt that that Microsoft's goal of 800 million more devices to get to Windows 10 is a staggering number (a nice round billion), but perhaps with Xbox One, HoloLens, and maybe someday even Windows Phone, they could reach that goal. Speaking of Windows Phone, Microsoft did note that demand for the new Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL is outstripping supply, and they hope to replenish soon stock for retailers who ran out of their initial supply.
Source: Microsoft Blog
