Windows 10 Popularity Plummeted in March

Standard support for the Windows 10 operating system will end in six months — Microsoft will continue to release security updates only as part of extended support, costing $30–$60. With the deadline approaching, Windows 10’s market share has begun to rapidly decline in favor of Windows 11.

Image source: Microsoft

According to the latest data from Statcounter, Windows 11 has seen a significant increase in popularity in March this year. In turn, Windows 10 has lost a significant share of users in just one month. Windows 10 is currently installed on 54.23% of PC users worldwide, which is 4.43 percentage points lower than it was a month earlier. Windows 11 accounts for 42.66% of all computers in the world, which is a new record for this OS. Over the past month, its share has grown by 4.53 percentage points (the largest increase in a month over the past three years).

Over the year, Windows 11 increased its share by 15.98 percentage points (in March 2024, it was 26.68%). Windows 10 lost 14.84 percentage points over the same period (in March 2024, its share was 69.07%).

The market share of other Windows operating systems has remained virtually unchanged in recent times. For example, Windows 7 is installed on 2.22% of computers (the share has decreased by 0.08 percentage points over the month), Windows XP is used by 0.33% of PC owners (the increase over the month was 0.04 percentage points), and Windows 8.1 accounts for 0.28% of computers (the share has decreased by 0.02 percentage points).