4.5 Years Later and Microsoft Reportedly Hits Its Goal of 1 Billion Windows 10 Devices
by Rafia ShaikhWhen it introduced Windows 10 to the world in the summer of 2015, Microsoft had an ambitious goal of hitting 1 billion active devices in 2 years. After an initial surge in the adoption rate, the growth got sluggish, later on picking up its pace as the end of support deadline for Windows 7 inched closer.
It appears that the Windows maker may have finally hit its goal of 1 billion Windows 10 devices. The company had officially announced reaching 900 million devices some 4 months back in September, 2019. Yusuf Mehdi, Corporate Vice President of Modern Life, Search & Devices Group at Microsoft, had announced the milestone, confirming that the company had added more new Windows 10 devices in the last 12 months than ever before.
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This rate was only expected to surge further since holiday season and the impending Windows 7 EOL was pushing home and enterprise users to either upgrade to Windows 10 (for free) or get new devices if their machines were old. Everyone expected to see Microsoft reaching to a billion devices in 2020, but the news has come in the very first month of the year.
1 billion Windows 10 devices - Microsoft yet to release a statement
The news comes through the official Windows website for Italy (via MSPU / WBI) that showed this number through a wallpaper. The Windows 7 end of life on January 14 and the PC market seeing a significant growth after a decade hint that this number should be correct.
However, the company is yet to deliver a press release or even tweet this milestone making everyone doubt the authenticity of the Italian Windows website. We have reached out to Microsoft for a confirmation and will update this space when we receive a response.
Regardless of the number, it appears the company may have finally found the right balance between delivering new features and focusing on quality improvements. Delivering the November 2019 Update as the first ever service pack-like update for Windows 10 was a genius move to gain back user trust as it encouraged tens of millions of its Windows 7 users to make the move to the new operating system. Windows 10 version 1909 may just be the most bug-free feature update we have seen.
[Update, 9:52am]: a company spokesperson has told Wccftech that the "latest official number" is still 900 million devices.