Windows 11 market share surpasses Windows 10 globally

It's only taken four years, but Windows 11's market share has finally surpassed that of Windows 10 as the dominant operating system among PC users.

Windows 11 market share surpasses Windows 10 globally
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TL;DR: Windows 11 has become the leading operating system for PC gaming on Steam, with 59.8% market share, and has recently surpassed Windows 10 globally. Its growth is driven by Windows 10's upcoming end-of-life and new AI features, though Windows 10 still holds nearly half the market.

According to the latest Steam Hardware & Software Survey results, which were released last week, Windows 11 remains the dominant operating system for the PC gaming platform. With 59.8% of PC gamers using Windows 11, it has comfortably held the lead over Windows 10 for quite some time.

Windows 11's market share finally surpasses that of Windows 10, image credit: StatCounter.
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Windows 11's market share finally surpasses that of Windows 10, image credit: StatCounter.

However, this is strictly related to PC gaming and Valve's Steam platform. When it comes to the global Operating System market, encompassing all systems, from office computers to those used by students and general at-home users, Windows 11 adoption has been relatively slow.

According to the latest StatCounter results, which have been tracking the Windows OS market share for years, Windows 11 has finally surpassed Windows 10 as the dominant operating system among PC users.

It's been a long road for Windows 11, with the operating system only capturing around 10% of the market share in its first year. A significant portion of the growth occurred in the last 18 months, during which Windows 11's market share increased from approximately 28% to over 51%.

One of the reasons for the slow uptick was that Windows 10 is fast approaching its end-of-life status for mainstream security updates and support in October 2025, forcing many organizations, businesses, and individuals to upgrade to a newer operating system. Additionally, as more AI tools are being integrated into Windows 11, these new features are also making the OS more attractive than its aging predecessor, Windows 10.

However, as the StatCounter results show, Windows 10 still holds close to 50% of the Windows operating system market share, so it will take some time for Windows 11 to reach the 80%+ market share that Windows 10 enjoyed ahead of its debut. And with the long-rumored Windows 12 on the horizon, it will be interesting to see how this all plays out and if Windows 11 has enough time to dominate the OS space like its predecessor has.