Windows 10’s market share is more than hanging in there despite being at end of support
Statistics released Tuesday by web traffic analysis site Statcounter reveal a stark difference around the globe when it comes to Windows 11 adoption, with North America and South America far outpacing other regions, including Europe.
The findings, which are based on statistics compiled daily, show that the Windows 11 market share in North America was 63.88% as of the end of October, compared to 33.07% for Windows 10. In South America, Windows 11 share was 73.14%, while Windows 10 was 21.91%.
Meanwhile, in Europe and Asia, there are stark differences. In Europe, Windows 11 share is only 52.37%, with Windows 10 close behind at 45.16%. The difference between the two operating systems is even slimmer in Asia,where the market share for Windows 10 was 49.81%, compared to 47.17% for Windows 11.
Globally, Windows 11 market share stands at 55.17%, while Windows 10 is 41.74%.
Similar path to ‘earlier siblings’
Aodhan Cullen, the CEO and founder of Dubin-based Statcounter, said the overall adoption of Windows 11 appears to be following a similar trend to that of earlier releases . “It looks like Windows 11 is following a familiar path of its earlier siblings,” he said. “Slow [and] steady adoption.”
Reacting to the findings, John Annand, technical counselor and practice lead, infrastructure and operations at Info-Tech Research Group, said, “’if it ain’t broke, why fix it?’ is a common enough refrain. Arguably, Windows 10 is broken, though. As of October 14, it’s no longer a supported operating system, and Microsoft will no longer have a commercial obligation to provide fixes or patches for performance or, more importantly, security issues.”
He added, “[one could] assume that everyone would acknowledge this truth and rush to upgrade — yet global statistics tell us that Windows 11 adoption remains woefully low, surpassing the 50-50 mark only recently, and only in North America [and South America]. So, the more truthful refrain should be, if I can’t tell it’s broke, why fix it?”
Annand pointed out, “an individual consumer not upgrading from Windows 10 to Windows 11 is bad, but it has a relatively small blast radius. One person’s data is encrypted. One identity is stolen. From that consumer’s perspective, while the impact may be significant, they may be playing the odds that it won’t happen to them.”
The enterprise, on the other hand, he said, “has a much, much larger blast radius. Not only are enterprise companies more likely to be targeted by malicious actors because of their deeper pockets, but a compromise of a single PC can cascade into facilitating the compromise of thousands of PCs.”
He said, “even if there weren’t significant regulations for many industries regarding security posture, no self-respecting IT professional is going to want to go before their board and report that the root cause of days of downtime and thousands of records locked or leaked is because of something that was 100% predictable and 100% remediable.”
With Windows 10, he said, “Microsoft threw everyone a lifeline. The European Union compelled Microsoft, and the rest of us have to shell out $30 a pop. Not bad incremental income for a 10-year-old product. But here you can see the chink in the Microsoft product strategy. Regardless of it being user error or not, Microsoft doesn’t want to see its name associated with major, and especially worldwide, cyber incidents.”
‘Promise of one more safe year’
Sanchit Vir Gogia, the chief analyst, founder and CEO of Greyhound Research, stated that the extra year of free maintenance in Europe has changed the psychology of Windows 11 adoption there. Once people realized that security fixes would continue at no charge, the need to upgrade felt far less immediate.
For consumers, he said, “that means more time to use familiar systems without disruption. For enterprises, it translates into a structured pause to finish testing and spread costs across multiple quarters. Europe’s slower transition is therefore not about capability. It is about permission.”
The promise of one more safe year, Gogia explained, “has given IT departments cover to wait until internal priorities align. This has quietly extended the life of Windows 10 across the continent. Microsoft may have offered the extension to ease anxiety, but it has also delayed its own upgrade curve. For now, European adoption is guided less by innovation cycles and more by careful cost management.”
He said the slow movement towards Windows 11 is not a sign of neglect by users who are not feeling urgency after mainstream support ended. “Most organizations understand that nothing truly changes until the first missed update. They know their systems will still run, their workflows will continue, and their users will not notice any difference right away. That breathing room gives CIOs time to plan a structured move rather than rushing into one.”
Many organizations, said Gogia, “have already bought an extra year of coverage or built internal buffers so that the upgrade can happen alongside existing hardware [refresh] cycles. In North America, this is tied to scheduled procurement and pilot programs. In Europe and Asia, it follows the pace of compliance and budget approvals.”
What looks like delay from the outside is actually control from within, he said, adding, “the focus has shifted from urgency to predictability, from reacting to Microsoft’s timeline to aligning with the enterprise’s own.”
Many enterprises, he said, “see the fee for continued Windows 10 support as the cost of stability, not hesitation. Paying $61 per commercial device for one more year is easier than retraining thousands of users, testing every line-of-business app, or buying new hardware at scale. In sectors such as healthcare and finance, where older systems still handle sensitive workloads, this temporary extension is viewed as essential risk management.”
Annand said that Microsoft knows that “the days of a fat locally installed OS are numbered. They’ve already been positioning first Azure Virtual Desktop, and now Windows 365, as the modern enterprise employee productivity tool.”
He pointed out that Microsoft got out of the handheld device OS market after its failed Metro UI, officially discontinuing last gasp efforts on Windows 10 Mobile sometime around 2020. He predicted it will do the same for other device form factors as well. “There’s more money to be made selling M365 applications than presenting a boot screen to a user,” he said.Windows 10’s market share is more than hanging in there despite being at end of support – ComputerworldRead More