New operating system market share data provided by StatCounter indicates a new switch in rankings for Windows 8 and Windows Vista, with the first dropping below the latter’s level in the month of December.
Windows 8 has always been a really controversial operating system, and ever since it came out in October 2012, people referred to it as “the new Vista.”
And there are solid reasons for this, as early adoption figures were really disappointing at first, especially because of the changes that Microsoft implemented in order to push users to touch-capable devices.
For example, the Start menu was removed in Windows 8, so users were instead provided with the Start screen, which was more appropriate for touchscreens and tablets.
And still, Windows 8, which posted quite a slow increase in market share, managed to overtake Windows Vista 12 months later, but the modern OS now appears to be going in reverse.
In the latest few months, Windows 8 has lost users at a really fast pace, so the modern OS flavor now has a market share of 3.57 percent, according to StatCounter.
At the same time, Windows Vista stays at 4.17 percent, both far behind the other OS versions on the market. Windows XP is third with 9.82 percent, while Windows 8.1 is second with 15.68 percent. Windows 7 continues to be the leader with 54.05 percent.
Windows Vista, however, is also losing users these days, but it’s not doing it at such a fast pace, though there’s no doubt that more users would jump ship when Windows 10 becomes available.
The main reason for Windows 8’s steep decline is the number of users who updated to Windows 8.1, which is actually offered for free to all those running the original modern OS.
Windows 8.1 brings a number of improvements, so it’s pretty clear that users want to step away from Windows 8, but at the same time, there are also rumors suggesting that Windows 10 could be offered free of charge to those running this particular OS version. So, it’s no surprise that many more are moving to Windows 8.1 these days.
At the same time, others are downgrading from Windows 8 to Windows 7, and proof is the growing market share of the latter, but also to Windows XP, which no longer receives updates since April 2014.
No matter the reason, Windows 8 is quickly going down and Microsoft can only be satisfied with it, especially because it needs more users to update to Windows 10 when it becomes available.
