Windows 8's market share fell abruptly in 2014

Feb 19, 2015 15:17 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft's modern operating systems failed to gain too much traction in 2014, and Windows 7 continues to be the preferred choice for all those looking to upgrade from Windows XP or searching for a familiar, stable, and user-friendly platform.

The chart we have here, generated by StatCounter and based on January 2014 - January 2015 desktop OS market share for Europe, shows that Windows 8 collapsed last year below Windows Vista's levels, which is generally referred to as Microsoft's biggest OS fail in history.

Windows 8 started the year 2014 with a market share of 7.16 percent but slowly declined each month before reaching the same market share as Windows Vista, 4.34 percent, in November 2014.

After that, Windows Vista remained steady, but Windows 8 continued to drop to 3.11 percent in January 2015. The same month, Vista was 3.77 percent.

As for the reasons Windows 8 lost so many users, there's no doubt that the migration to Windows 8.1 is the main factor that caused its market share to do down so fast. But at the same time, there still are users who find Windows 8 very confusing and difficult to use and go back to Windows 7 in search of a more familiar working environment.

Things could change significantly this year, when Microsoft is set to launch Windows 10, a new version of the operating system that improves the desktop and adds new modern features for both PCs and tablets.