End of 2012, Windows managed to increase it’s market share after six months of losses, mainly thanks to Windows 7 and Windows 8. But unfortunately it started 2013 on a losing streak. 2013 was not half as lucky for them as expected. Windows 7 saw a market decline for the first time since its launch in 2009. Windows 8 was not off to an exceptional start either.
But Windows’ February sales have brought some respite, as Windows 7 regained a small percentage of 0.07 points (from 44.48 percent to 44.55 percent) after losing a considerable 0.63 percentage points in the previous month. Windows 8 gained a significant 0.43 percentage points.
Back in December, Windows 7 had skyrocketed to 45 percent mark and then the ill-fated January brought it’s downfall for the first time in 3 years since it’s launch. February came as a silver lining to the dark clouds of January but the chances of touching that 45 percent mark seem bleak now. Windows Vista meanwhile slipped by 0.07 percentage points (from 5.24 percent to 5.17 percent) and is eventually expected to fall under the 5 percent mark soon. Windows XP lost a solid 0.52 percentage points (from 39.51 percent to 38.99 percent).
Between January and February, Windows lost 0.09 percentage points (from 91.71 percent to 91.62 percent). This was to the benefit of OS X which rose by 0.09 percentage points to touch 7.17 percent. Linux on the other hand remained flat at 1.21 percent.
The 15$ upgrade scheme to Windows 8 ended with February, thus clearly indicating the growing loom over Microsoft’s head. It now depends on OEMs to come up with some good hardware to compensate for the losses.
Time for Microsoft to think out of the box, and come up with some new scheme to recover the losses incurred.