The month of October was an interesting one for Microsoft as Windows 8 lost market share for the first time since launching a year ago - technically speaking. The decline came as a result of users upgrading to Windows 8.1 in addition to customers purchasing new PCs according to the latest report from Net Applications.
Data shows Windows 8's market share dropped from 8.02 percent to 7.53 percent (0.49 percent). Meanwhile, Windows 8.1 adoption jumped from 0.87 percent to 1.72 percent, good for an increase of 0.85 percent. That's pretty solid when you consider Windows 8.1 wasn't released until the middle of the month.
Elsewhere, Windows 7 pretty much held steady with an increase of just 0.03 percent (from 46.39 percent to 46.42 percent). Interestingly enough, it's the first time that Windows 7 has gained more share than Windows 8. Windows Vista finished the month with 3.63 percent market share, Windows XP closed with 31.24 percent while all other versions of Windows accounted for 1.84 percent.
Gazing at the bigger picture, Windows operating systems were responsible for 90.66 percent of the market, Mac finished at 7.73 percent and Linux held 1.61 percent.
Looking ahead, we will likely get a much better impression of market share during the month of November as operating systems like Windows 8.1 and OS X 10.9 Mavericks will have a complete month of stats under their belt.
Do you think Windows 8.1 will be adopted at a faster rate this holiday season compared to Windows 8 last year?