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Windows 10 has been available for a while now since launching back in July, and sales of PCs pre-installed with the operating system (OS) have gradually increased.
According to analyst Context, sales began to pick up in distribution during late August and early September.
During the second week of September, six weeks after the launch of the OS, Microsoft saw around 9,200 new Windows 10-based PCs go through Western European distributors.
This translated into a 3.1 per cent share of the Windows Home and a 3.8 per cent share of the Windows Business segment.
As expected, the adoption rate of Windows 10 has remained below that for previous versions of Windows the same time after launch, reports Context.
There are various reasons for this, for example the offer of a free upgrade to users, and some distributors say that this is why they have seen little demand from retail for new Windows 10-based devices.
Plus, levels of old PC stock in some Western European countries remains high, and inventory will need to be cleared before new PCs running Windows 10 can appear in store.
Context said: “For instance, although Bing Notebooks were generally expected to sell out in the course of the third quarter, Context data for early September still shows these as having a seven per cent share of consumer Notebook sales across Western Europe at distributor level.”
This gradual pick up in sales is clear, as distributor Entatech also previously revealed that it has seen fivefold growth in sales of the OS, saying it has enjoyed “tremendous success” with Windows 10.
Some businesses were concerned over the free upgrade of Windows 10 and were unsure how to make money from selling the OS, but this hasn’t been the case for Entatech.
This isn’t the first time Microsoft has witnessed a growth in pre-installed devices. For example, in 2007 Vista was pre-installed on 58 per cent of new Windows Home PC devices sold by distributors six weeks after launch, while Windows 7 made it to a 72 per cent consumer share in its 2009 launch and Windows 8 to 74 per cent in 2012.
