Windows reaches 1.4 billion users, says Microsoft
Satya Nadella has reported the number of Windows users in Microsoft’s financial results presentation. And they are not a few: 1,400 million monthly active users use their operating systems, and those with Android only surpass them.
Microsoft has presented financial results for the last quarter of 2021, and they are record-breaking, as our colleagues at MCPRO tell us. For the first time, it broke the $50 billion mark in revenue with strong growth across its divisions.
Microsoft entered 51,700 million dollars in the quarter for a year-over-year increase of 20%. Earnings were in sync, $18.8 billion, up 21 percent. Both data have exceeded analysts’ estimates, so investors will likely continue to reward the value of a stock that continues to trend positive despite the ‘savings’ to be paid by Activision Blizzard being monumental.
As in recent years and with an additional boost from the hybrid work models required by the pandemic, everything that comes from the Azure cloud continues to improve results (+26%). It is already Microsoft’s most prominent business if we include services based on it, mainly Microsoft 365 (Office 365), which already has a whopping 56.4 million subscribers. In total, Microsoft’s Productivity and Enterprise area had revenue of $15.9 billion, up 19%.
Windows users
Windows has not been Microsoft’s primary product in terms of income generation for years. Still, there is no doubt that 1,400 million active users go a long way in everything, direct sales, and everything that moves Windows, including its enormous positioning on desktops software to power other Microsoft applications and services. For example, Microsoft says that Teams is used by 145 million users a day. If it were not installed by default in Windows, they would be much less.
Last quarter, Windows OEM revenue grew 25%, confirming that the manufacturer channel is the actual maintainer of the system. It is mentioned that most of these licenses correspond to company versions and not consumer ones. Another issue to note is that the user data offered by the CEO of Microsoft includes any Windows-based device, including Xbox consoles or HoloLens headsets, in addition to the bulk of personal computers.
If you are wondering, data on the share corresponding to each edition of Windows has not been offered, and it would have been interesting to know the degree of actual adoption of Windows 11. Depending on the external analyst who publishes the situation analysis, the share varies from just a few tenths to 9%.
Perhaps the key, at least in companies, is the very existence of Windows 10. The final version of Windows 10 21H2 landed recently, and although it does not include the announced news, it has achieved the desired stability after reducing the number of update releases. In addition, its technical support will last -at least- until October 2025, which is a guarantee for companies and users who prefer to wait to perform the migration.
