Windows 11 Now Has Over One Billion Users

As part of today’s quarterly earnings conference call, Microsoft revealed that there are now over one billion Windows 11 users. That’s a big milestone by any measure, but here’s what I find interesting: It took Windows 11 less time to reach one billion users than it did for Windows 10.

I bet you didn’t see that one coming.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced the milestone during his opening remarks in the call. And while some may want to excuse this away somehow, the numbers Microsoft provided during its quarterly earnings report prove this was not somehow a “bump” triggered by the Windows 10 end of support. That barely moved the needle on PC sales. In fact, I think the ongoing component crisis had more to do with this than Windows 10.

But no matter. Let’s do some math.

Microsoft released Windows 10 on July 29, 2015. This was a bit of a different era, in that Windows 10 would be a free upgrade across the board, and there were promises of one billion users “within two or three years.” But a year later, it was clear that wouldn’t happen, and Microsoft used a hapless blogger as a patsy to deliver that news. But it finally hit the one billion milestone on March 16, 2020. So it took exactly four and a half years to hit the one billion number.

Microsoft released Windows 11 on October 5, 2021. It announced the one billion milestone for Windows 11 today, on January 28, 2026. So it took Windows 11 four years and three months to reach the one billion number. About three months less time than it took Windows 10.

Further defining this victory, Windows 11 is exclusively used on PCs. But Windows 10 sales/usage were being counted at that time across PCs, Windows Phones, Xbox consoles, Surface Hub, and other hardware. Remember, Microsoft was really trying to goose those numbers back then.

Today, the narrative is that everyone hates Windows 11. I complain about the enshittification, which is real. But that started with Windows 10 (or, really Windows 8). And I don’t “hate” Windows 11, nor do I see hatred out in the world.

What I do see is one billion users.