600 Million (Premium)

Windows 10 usage has accelerated a bit in the past 6 months. Let’s do some math.

Expect mistakes. Math is hard, especially when the numbers are fuzzy and when I’m in the driver’s seat.

Microsoft this week revealed that there are now over 600 million Windows 10 PCs and devices worldwide. This is the first time since May that we’ve received an update on this usage figure. Back then, the tally was 500 million active Windows 10 PCs worldwide.

As you may know, I watch these numbers carefully: While there is always wiggle room and interpretation to be had, the active Windows 10 PC usage base is one of the very few “hard” numbers that Microsoft provides. That is, this number is real: It maps very closely, I think, to the actual real world number of users, and it represents real usages. It’s not licenses sold, a nebulous figure at best.

That said, the number is also fuzzy because it includes non-PC devices like Xbox One consoles. I’ll expand on that bit later, but it makes some calculations basically impossible.

Anyway, here’s the math on Windows 10 usage, as I understand it. I’ll keep using the term PCs here, but it’s really “devices, mostly PCs.”

100 million new active Windows 10 PCs in 6 months works out to about 16.7 million new active Windows 10 PCs per month.

That’s a faster average monthly growth rate than during the previous known period, though these things are never directly comparable. Previous to May, Microsoft revealed in October 2016 that there were 400 million active Windows 10 PCs. So between October 2016 and May 2016, an average of 14 million new active Windows 10 PCs were added each month.

Looked at another way, from October 2016 to May 2017, a period of about seven months, Microsoft added 100 million new active Windows 10 PCs. It took the company only six months to add the next 100 million active Windows 10 PCs. And that, more recent, period did not include a holiday selling period. This further supports the notion that Windows 10 uptake is speeding up, I think.

Again, it’s worth pointing out that not all of these PCs are technically PCs: The tally includes some tens of millions of Xbox One consoles, Lumia and other Windows phones, Surface Hubs, and other Windows 10-based devices. But Microsoft has acknowledged repeatedly that the vast majority of these are PCs. That was true even when the firm allegedly still thought Windows phone could survive. (And I’ve already debunked the notion that Windows phone’s failure was some kind of a surprise to Microsoft.)

These are the major usage milestones for Windows 10:

April 2015. Microsoft’s Terry Myerson makes the bold prediction that Windows 10 will be used on over one billion PCs within three years of its release, or roughly mid-2018.

July 2015. Microsoft releases the first version of Windows 10.

August 2015. 75 million active Windows 10 PCs.

January 2016. 200 million active Windows 10 PCs.

March 2016. 270 million active Windows 10 PCs.

May 2016. 300 million active Windows 10 PCs.

June 2016. 350 million active Windows 10 PCs worldwide.

July 2016. Microsoft admits that it will not be able to meet its publicly-stated goal of getting Windows 10 on over one billion PCs within its first three years, as I had predicted.

July 2016. The free upgrade offer for Windows 10 ends. As expected, growth in active Windows 10 PCs slows after this date, and Microsoft, not coincidentally, reports usage milestones less frequently going forward.

October 2016. 400 million active Windows 10 PCs worldwide.

May 2017. 500 million active Windows 10 PCs worldwide.

November 2017. 600 million active Windows 10 PCs worldwide.

A few additional thoughts.

Back when Terry Myerson made his “one billion” prediction, I did a bit of math, noting that the company would need to have about 300 million Windows 10 PCs out in the world after one year and about 600 million after two years. The firm hit 300 million in 10 months—less than a year—and it hit 600 million in 28 months, which is four months (or one quarter) more than two years. That isn’t too shabby, honestly, and it makes one wonder why Microsoft, way back in July 2016, publicly admitted it would not meet this goal.

My theory: It was part of a two-year campaign to besmirch Windows phone so that the firm could wind that business down with fewer complaints, especially from shareholders. Again, I debunked the notion that Windows phone had anything meaningful to do with Microsoft not meeting its one billion goal already.

So what does that 600 million figure tell us about the PC installed base?

If you look at the usage share statistics from Netmarketshare, you’ll see that Windows 10 is in use on 29.26 percent of all PCs worldwide. We know that there are 600 million Windows 10 PCs. Doing some math, this means that the total installed base is approximately 2 billion PCs worldwide.

Hm.

That doesn’t seem right, does it? Microsoft long ago stopped using its 1.5 billion figure for total PC installed base, and the assumption, given several years of falling PC sales, is that the installed base has fallen.

Factoring out Mac, Linux, and Other, which together account for 10.27 percent of the installed base, doesn’t help: Now the installed base (or Windows-only PCs) is still 1.84 billion.

Those numbers are both way off. In fact, I believe the PC installed base to be as low as one billion. I’m not sure how to rectify these numbers.

Looking at Statcounter, I see something interesting, though: It claims that Windows is on 37.43 percent of devices used out in the world, second only to Android, with 38.49 percent. We do know that Android passed the 2 billion active devices mark back in May. And while that figure is obviously higher now, it’s worth pointing out that 1.84 billion (Windows PCs) is 92 percent of 2 billion (Android devices). Which is high.

37.43 is 97 percent of 38.49. But if you account for Android device usage growth in six months (and assume the same rate of growth from the previous period, which was over 8 months), which was 75 million per month, then there are about 2.45 billion Android devices out in the world now. And 1.84 billion is 75 percent of that number. Which is just an estimate, of course.

So, again. I’m not sure what to make of these numbers. Maybe if we were to take out the non-PC devices—phones, Xbox Ones, etc.—this would make more sense. 30 million-ish Xbox One consoles, for example, would skew these results nicely, and maybe help them make sense. But since Microsoft doesn’t break out those devices, we can only guess.

So let’s just guess.

Let’s say there are 60 million non-PC devices in that 600 million figure. Yes, I pulled that number right out of my ass, but it’s basically double what I believe the Xbox One installed base to be. So most of the rest is remaining phones.

If there are 540 million active Windows 10 PCs—really PCs—out in the world, then the total PC installed base, acccording to Netmarketshare, and excluding Macs, Linux, and Other–is 1.67 billion. This is much closer to that 1.5 billion figure. So I can only conclude that that 60 million figure—which, again, I made up—is, if anything, low.

Put simply, it is not likely that the PC installed base ever grew past 1.5 billion. As noted, I still believe it to be between one and 1.5 billion now. But whatever your opinion of that, I think it’s clear that there is a residual number of Windows phones, plus a growing number of Xbox One consoles and other devices, out in the world that is skewing our understanding of Microsoft’s latest milestone.

Ultimately, all we can do is estimate, guess, and wonder. And that’s true despite the fact that the 600 million figure is a “hard” number, in that it measures actual active devices used and, a bit more roughly, users. Because it’s still really a fuzzy number too.