Microsoft: Windows 10 has an install base of 16% (November 2015)

It is difficult to find out how well -- or not -- Microsoft's new operating system Windows 10 is doing, and whether it is likely that Microsoft will hit the 1 billion or more devices running the operating system in two to three years after launch.

The company has been tight lipped about the progress, and revealed numbers only sporadically in the past.

Back in August, Microsoft reported that the operating system was installed on 75 million devices, and in December 2015, it reported an install base of more than 200 million.

Those official figures paint a clear picture of the growth, but they are not enough to determine how well Windows 10 is doing.

That's where third-party sites came into play in the past. The main issue with those services is that they are not accurate as they analyze web traffic to determine operating system usage stats.

That explains the big difference in usage stats. The latest Steam hardware survey stats indicate that more than 32% of all Steam users are using devices with Windows 10, while services such as NetMarketShare or Statcounter see Windows 10 at 11.85% or 12.45% respectively.

Microsoft's Windows Trend website sheds some light on those statistics. The first chart, highlighting the operating system install base between September 2014 and November 2015 highlights the rise and fall of Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10.

According to the information posted there, Windows 10 went from 1% in June 2015 to 16% in November 2015.

	Windows 7	Windows 8	Windows 8.1	Windows 10
11/1/2014	74	7	18
12/1/2014	73	7	20
1/1/2015	72	6	22
2/1/2015	71	5	23
3/1/2015	71	5	24
4/1/2015	70	5	25
5/1/2015	69	5	26
6/1/2015	68	4	27	1
7/1/2015	67	4	26	4
8/1/2015	63	4	24	9
9/1/2015	64	3	21	11
10/1/2015	65	3	17	14
11/1/2015	63	3	18	16

Windows 10 was released on July 29, 2015 officially.

A switch from trends for all users to gamers shows that gamers adopt Windows 10 more rapidly than all users. The latest figure as of November 2015 is 20% for Windows 10 which is 4% more than the average OS install base.

The OS install base is larger than the reported usage share of third-party services such as NetMarketShare which reported Windows 10 on 9% in November 2015.

The Windows Trends website reveals other interesting information. Here is a short list, all stats as of November 2015.

1. 22% of all devices have less than 4 Gigabyte of RAM, 56% 4 Gigabyte, and 21% more than 4 Gigabyte of RAM.
2. 3% of all devices have less than 64 Gigabyte of storage, 7% 128 Gigabyte, and 13% 256 Gigabyte.
3. 3% of all devices support a resolution of less than 720p, 74% 720p, and 23% higher resolutions.
4. The most popular Windows Store categories based on downloads are games (42%), entertainment (9%), and photo & video (8%).
5. Games lead the app and IAP (in app purchase) sales with 84% of all sales.
6. The ratio of revenue from app sales and IAP sales is 20/80 meaning that companies earn most revenue from in-app purchases.
7. Windows 10 accounts for 59% of all app and IAP downloads.

Microsoft computes the statistics from Windows devices that are configured to submit telemetry data to the company while app purchase and download data is taken directly from Windows Store.

It is a bit unfortunate that Microsoft does not provide statistics for December or January yet. The OS install base is higher than that of third-party services but it is likely that Microsoft's statistics are more accurate than those of these services.

Now You: What's your take on the data?