MICROSOFT HAS KICKED off 2016 by announcing that more than 200 million users are now using the latest version of Windows.
Windows 10 was launched on 29 July and was quickly adopted by users, downloaded 75 million times within the first month. By October, it was downloaded by 110 million users, meaning it gained 90 million in three months.
In a post announcing the milestone, the company said it was the fastest adoption of any version of Windows. A major part of this is down to Microsoft offering Windows 10 as a free upgrade to those using Windows 7 and 8 users, an offer that is valid for the first year of its release.
When the offer ends in late July, those who want to upgrade will have to pay or purchase a new PC or laptop.
The announcement is good news for Microsoft whose big aim is to have the software running on a billion devices within two to three years of launch. The vast majority of upgrades have come from PCs and laptops while on mobile, the only two smartphones running Windows 10 now are the Lumia 950 and 950 XL, which were only released last month.
The Windows 10 upgrade for smartphones has hit delays, but Microsoft has promised it would be arriving soon.
The company included other stats with its announcement such as the amount of time users have been playing games on Windows 10 (four billion hours) and those streaming their Xbox One games to their PC (6.6 million hours).
Also, 44.5 billion minutes have been spent in Microsoft Edge, the successor to Internet Explorer, while 11 billion hours have been spent on Windows 10 in December.
As for the app store, Microsoft claims that Windows 10 usage has generated four times more revenue per device, compared to Windows 8.
“We are even more excited that these customers are loving Windows 10,” said Yusuf Mehdi. ”Overall, we are seeing significantly higher customer satisfaction with Windows 10 than any prior version of Windows”.
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