Windows 10 growth rate seems to be increasing lately

Back at Build 2016, Microsoft announced that Windows 10 passed the 300 million active user threshold, indicating solid progress toward the goal of a billion installed devices. Since then, there’s been a general uncertainty around just how quickly Microsoft’s newest operating system was taking over the world, along with a fair amount of controversy around Microsoft’s increasingly aggressive upgrade tactics.

However, whether it’s those aforementioned tactics or the impending end of the free Windows 10 upgrade, something seems to be prompting people to upgrade. Computerworld reports that their analysis of StatCounter data indicates a sudden rise in the number of upgraders:

Windows 10 in the last two weeks has posted its largest growth spurt since August 2015, according to data from an Irish analytics vendor.

StatCounter, which measures usage share — a proxy for activity, but not necessarily representative of the number of devices running Windows 10 — portrayed a large and extended string of week-over-week increases, starting around May 13 and continuing through Thursday. In the last three days — starting Tuesday — those gains were in excess of a percentage point, a rarity in StatCounter’s Windows 10 data.

According to Computerworld, data shows that Windows 10 is showing more growth activity right now than during the last holiday season at the end of 2016 and beginning of 2016. If attributable to Microsoft’s aggressive upgrade practices, then at least in the short term that seems to have been an efficient effort.

We’ll be keeping our eye on this sort of data as July 29, 2016 approaches and the free upgrade offer goes away. Theoretically, at least, it’s a trend that should only increase as people start pondering the cost of failing to do so–in spite of Microsoft’s scaling back on the aggressiveness of their upgrade push. Once the company starts charging for the upgrade, we imagine that the trend will revert to something of a slowdown.

Let us know in the comments if you think Windows 10 will continue to grow at a fast clip. If you haven’t upgraded yourself, we’d love to know why.