A December 2023 Statcounter report shows that despite the recent release of Windows 11 version 23H2, the operating system's market share has remained relatively unchanged, with approximately one in every four connected Windows PCs running Windows 11.
In December 2023, Windows 11 lost a small number of users. According to Statcounter data, the proportion of Windows 11 users dropped from 26.63% to 26.54%.
With Windows 10 scheduled to end its life cycle in less than two years, users are slowly migrating away from the aging operating system. However, hundreds of millions of users are still using Windows 10. Among all Windows users, Windows 10 accounts for approximately 67.46%, a decrease of 0.56 percentage points compared with November 2023.
Windows 11 and its higher-than-expected hardware requirements have created a clear market segmentation. With the next generation of Windows set to launch later this year, Microsoft faces a tough decision: Call it Windows 12 to help its partners' marketing arms sell more devices, or stick with the existing brand and prevent further cleavage of the market. According to recent reports, the company has yet to make up its mind.
As for the older versions that have become obsolete, they still have their fair share of users. The proportion of Windows 7 users is 3.34%, Windows 8.1 is 1.66%, and 0.64% of users are still using Windows XP, an operating system that Microsoft stopped supporting ten years ago. Windows 10 will join them in October 2025, but Microsoft will give users two additional years of paid extended security updates. Interestingly, the regular consumer version is also available with the Extended Security Plan. We don't know how much Microsoft plans to charge for this, but regardless of price, the end of support for Windows 10 and its paid updates could become a big deal.