14 DAY TRIAL // Windows 10 is growing at a faster pace in countries across the world, but as far as China, which continues to be one of the largest software markets for many companies, including Microsoft, the new OS has a really tough time trying to convince users to upgrade.
Adoption figures provided by StatCounter for China show that between July 29, the date when the new OS got the green light, and September 20, only 3.4 percent upgraded to Windows 10, which makes it the fourth most used desktop operating system in the country.
Right now, Windows 7 is the clear leader with 59.47 percent of the market, followed by Windows XP, which still owns 24.78 percent of the PCs in the country. Windows 8.1 is third and far behind the other two with 6.5 percent.
Why Windows 10 fails to make an impact in China
One of the reasons that make Windows 10 a less appealing choice for Chinese users is the local level of piracy, as it’s believed that many computers in the country are actually running copies of Windows that aren’t legitimate.
In other words, a big part of the Windows 7 and Windows XP market share is made of desktop PCs powered by pirated Windows, so some computer users do not want to switch to Windows 10 because illegal activation methods aren’t so widespread right now, but also because their current setups work very well just the way they are right now.
At the same time, given Windows XP’s shocking market share right now, it’s pretty clear that many Chinese users still own old systems powered by hardware which might not be able to run Windows 10, so the overall cost of the transition to Windows 10 might be higher than initially expected.
Windows 7 is very likely to remain the clear leader of the Chinese market for many years from now, so it’ll be interesting to see how Microsoft tries to convince local users to upgrade to Windows 10.