Windows 10 Allegedly Crosses 1 Billion Active Installs Globally

It's been a long time coming, but Microsoft has announced via its Italian-language website that Windows 10 installations have finally crossed the 1 billion mark worldwide. Although the news is interestingly coming first from the Microsoft Italy, we'd imagine that the company will soon be making an official announcement via channels in its home market of the United States.

When we last visited Windows 10 adoption numbers, the company reported 900 million active installations in September 2019. "Windows 10 runs across a family of devices and today marks more devices added to Windows 10 within the last year than any year before," said Microsoft in a statement at the time. "Thanks to the support of our customers and partners, Microsoft is closer to reaching its goal of 1 billion devices on Windows 10."

Prior to that, Windows 10 installs stood at 825 million in May 2019 and 800 million in March 2019. 

We should mention, however, that Microsoft had hoped to achieve the 1 billion active installs mark much sooner. Not long after Windows 10 launched during the summer of 2015, Microsoft said that it would hit the mark in 2018. However, the company ran into a number of potholes along the way, most memorably with its failed acquisition of Nokia's Hardware and Services division, the implosion of Lumia smartphone sales, and the utter failure of the Windows 10 Mobile operating system.

Windows 10 still retains the crown as the fastest growing version of Windows ever, and its adoption is likely to grow even faster in the coming months and years. As we all know, Microsoft ended Windows 7 Extended Support earlier this month, and the company is still offering free upgrades to Windows 10 for Windows 7 and Windows 8.x users.