Windows 8 wasn’t exactly a beloved operating system, but it sure seems like its successor is off to a pretty good start! Today, Windows VP Yusuf Mehdi tweeted that more than 75 million devices are running the updated Windows 10 operating system.
Keep in mind, Windows 10 has only been out for about a month and mobile devices still haven’t been given the green light to download. So, 75 million devices is actually fairly impressive. For comparison, when Windows 8 was new it took roughly three months to sell 60 million licenses. But the new OS is free, which helps. And the last OS was caught in this awkward space where Windows 8 was trying to do more than a lot of people were ready for, which made it unpopular from the get-go.
Mehdi had a few — 9 to be exact — follow-up tweets about other positive stats from the launch, the most interesting of which are these:
3. #Windows10: More than 90,000 unique PC or tablet models have upgraded to Windows 10. 3/10 pic.twitter.com/dEHWnBf1g9
— Yusuf Mehdi (@yusuf_i_mehdi) August 26, 2015
Microsoft’s goal is for Windows 10 to reach 1 billion devices by 2017, so 75 million is just the start. (That’s a long way to go.) Still the company can probably expect a boost when mobile devices get to download the update. Plus, the company still hasn’t had a chance to sell a lot of new laptops with Windows 10 yet. Just think, there’s a couple holiday shopping seasons (plus back to school and graduations) between now and 2017.
5. #Windows10: More than 122 years of gameplay have streamed from Xbox One to Windows 10 devices. 5/10 pic.twitter.com/viUMnSV8wM
— Yusuf Mehdi (@yusuf_i_mehdi) August 26, 2015
Here’s a great example how Windows can play nicely with Windows. As more people begin buying, upgrading and integrating existing devices using Microsoft’s new OS, the company can keep crawling towards that 1 billion goal.
8. #Windows10: Windows Store for Windows 10 has seen 6X more app downloads per device than Windows 8. 8/10 pic.twitter.com/OusimL2Xjd
— Yusuf Mehdi (@yusuf_i_mehdi) August 26, 2015
This last one might actually be the best measure for the success of the launch, though. The Windows Store — during the Windows 8 era — was pretty barren. That’s partly due to the lack of users accessing and downloading from the store and partly due to developers seeing no value in making apps for the market (Oh, hey! those two things are directly related!). Even though it’s hard to say what timeframe is actually being represented in this tweet, 6x more app downloads means Windows Phone might have a fighting chance going forward as well.
If Microsoft can encourage developers to make apps for Windows PCs that people also want to use on a Windows phone, it could create an ecosystem that users won’t want to leave for other platforms.