Windows 10 has finally managed to hit 1 billion monthly active devices. The milestone actually comes years later than what Microsoft had originally envisioned, but it does cement Windows’s place as the world’s most popular operating system.
“Today we’re delighted to announce that over one billion people have chosen Windows 10 across 200 countries resulting in more than one billion active Windows 10 devices,” said Yusuf Mehdi, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft’s Modern Life, Search, & Devices group. “We couldn’t be more grateful to our customers, partners and employees for helping us get here.”
Breaking that impressive figure down further, Mehdi pointed out that Windows 10 now powers “80,000 models and configurations of different laptops and 2-in-1s from over 1,000 different manufacturers.” The operating system also fuels “Mixed Reality and HoloLens—transforming the way people build, design, learn and experience the world around them.”
During Microsoft’s Build 2015 conference, then-Windows-chief Terry Myerson predicted that Windows 10 would reach a billion devices by 2017 or 2018. “Our goal is that within two to three years of Windows 10’s release there will be 1 billion devices running Windows 10,” Myerson said in April 2015.
Unfortunately, it took nearly five years for that to actually happen – but better late than never!