We’re officially into 2025, and the soon-to-be-obsolete Windows 10 is not losing market share. Based on the last few months’ stats by StatCounter, Windows 11’s predecessor is regaining a foothold in the global market share. But is that really the case? We’ll explain what might be going on.
Windows Latest analyzed the last two months’ data of Statcounter, before which Windows 10’s share was falling dramatically. In October 2024, it touched its lowest-ever 60.95% market share but registered a small bounce back to the September levels. Here’s a breakdown of what happened:
- Windows 10 increased its dominance by 0.88 percent in November to reach 61.83%.
- Windows 11 lost 0.62 percent market share and fell to 34.94% in the same month.
- December 2024 was another good month for Windows 10, with a 0.87 uptick from the previous month to reach 62.7% of users.
- Windows 11’s share dipped by 0.82% in the last month of 2024.
This small change shows that, at least on the desktop front, Windows users are still holding on to Windows 10 despite Microsoft’s efforts to phase it out.
Now, what’s important to understand is that StatCounter can have errors and corrections, which is why Windows 10 is growing and then dropping again. But based on the trend seen by Windows Latest, it looks like Windows 10 is not really losing market share.
It’s barely moving, and this is true when we look at the data released by more reliable Steam.
Gamers like Windows 11 more
We have been tracking Steam’s hardware and software survey for the past few months, but Windows 10 doesn’t seem to have any growth there. It’s constantly declining, and the numbers are already below the 50% mark.
The latest numbers show that Windows 11 gained a 6.16% share and rose to almost 56%, while Windows 10 lost a 5.07% user base. Gamers are actively switching to Windows 11, primarily because new PCs ship with it, and buying a Windows 10 license doesn’t make sense anymore.
The staggering 42.39% market share of Windows 10 in the gaming community when we are less than ten months away from its retirement is baffling.
Even after so much push and nagging of its users, Microsoft doesn’t seem to convince everyone to make the change. It’s mostly due to forcibly keeping many users from using Windows 11 due to hardware requirements.
We have already discussed how Microsoft is angering its supportive Windows 10 users by enforcing TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot. A user must be able to use the OS without it, even if they cannot use all the new security features.
Or, come October 2025 or even October 2026 (if you pay $30 to extend the update service), hundreds of thousands of users will have a solid reason to move to Linux and keep their PC alive for a few more years.
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