Microsoft Confirms 200 Million Windows 10 Device Activations Amidst Tremendous Upgrade Push
It appears that last week’s report, and our assertion that Microsoft wouldn’t take long to announce some big news on Windows 10 device activations have been proven true. In a statement sent to HotHardware this morning, Microsoft confirmed that there are now over 200 million devices globally that have an activated copy of Windows 10 installed.
News of Microsoft cresting the 200 million threshold comes just three months after the company announced that it had activated over 110 million copies of Windows 10. Microsoft has seen an extraordinary boost in device activations in recent months, with 40 percent of all Windows 10 activations occurring post-Black Friday.
Microsoft says that the “growth trajectory” of Windows 10 is even greater than that of Windows 7, which saw big adoption numbers following the disappoint brought with Windows Vista. Microsoft says that Windows 10 is outperforming Windows 7 by 140 percent, while it is completely obliterating Windows 8 adoption by almost 400 percent.
“One of the ways we measure our progress with Windows 10 is looking at how people are using Windows, said Microsoft’s Yusuf Mehdi. “Recently we reached another milestone – people have spent over 11 billion hours on Windows 10 in December alone, spending more time on Windows than ever before.
“We continue to be excited – and humbled – by the incredible response to Windows 10.”
Needless to say, Microsoft is happy about Windows 10’s performance (which is on track to see over one billion activations during its life cycle), and it should be, despite some of the tricky tactics that it has used to ensure that adoption numbers are high. Adoption rates should tick even higher this year when Microsoft moves Windows 10 from an Optional to Recommended update via Windows Update for Windows 7 and Windows 8 users.
In addition to the status update on Windows 10 activations, Mehdi revealed that 2015 was the biggest year in Xbox history and that December 28th was also the most activate day for users on Xbox Live in Xbox history. It was also announced that the hugely popular Surface Book will be expanded to 10 additional markets in the coming weeks. Those markets include Austria, Australia, UK, France, Germany, India, Japan, Switzerland and New Zealand.
And for those that are amped about HoloLens, Mehdi says that the HoloLens Development Edition will soon be available.
