How Do 400 Million Windows 7 Licenses Compare Against Windows XP and Vista History?

8:00 AM - July 14, 2011 - By Wolfgang Gruener - Source : Tom's Guide US

Steve Ballmer proudly announced that Microsoft has sold 400 million Windows 7 licenses. It's a big number by any measure, but how does it compare to Windows Vista and Windows XP?

It has become a tradition for me that I am looking a bit closer into Microsoft's operating system license shipments every time Microsoft announces a new number with the subtle remark that a certain Windows is the fastest selling operating system ever. I don't know about you, but I never heard Microsoft ever announcing that any of its OSes was not the fastest selling OS in Windows history. Even Vista was, apparently, but we know that Vista wasn't exactly a success which tells us that a big number does not mean necessarily that a particular OS is a big success.

So, do 400 million Windows 7 licenses mean that Windows 7 is a big hit? Let's see.

We need to break this number down and put it in perspective to actual PC sales. Windows 7 launched on October 22, 2009 and has sold, on average, about 20 million licenses per month since then (give or take a few hundred thousand per month to even out the pre-sales event preceding the OS launch in 2009). During those 20 months, the global PC industry sold about 591 million PCs, which means that Microsoft shipped about 68 Windows licenses for every 100 PCs sold (let's forget the upgrades for a moment and take this number as a way to compare sales).

What is particularly stunning about the 20 million-per-month number is the fact that it is very consistent and there seems to almost clockwork in play to achieve those 20 million units. 100 million Windows 7 licenses were sold after 6 months, 150 million after 8 months, 240 million after 12 months and 300 million after 15 months. It is almost spooky. Windows 7 sales may be declining just a tad from the 8 month mark, but it's not significant.

Windows Vista, in comparison, sold 128 million licenses in 9 months, or 12 months, if we include the 3-month Express Upgrade cycle that enabled Microsoft to make the 2006/2007 holiday season (Vista was officially released to retail in January 2007, but was available through a coupon beginning in October 2006). So, a fair comparison would be that Vista sold just over 10 million units per month in the first year. Microsoft then announced 180 million units in August 2008 or 19/22 months after launch, which dropped the average to about 8 million units per month: interestingly enough, that means that Windows 7 has outsold Vista already as Windows Vista sold 384 million licenses in a best case scenario (48 months * 8 million units) until it was discontinued in October of last year.

In its first year Microsoft sold about 88 million retail copies of Windows Vista and an additional 40 million licenses. According to Gartner, 271 million PCs were sold in 2007. Those 128 million Vista units closely compare to those shipments (yes, there are three months that don't match up, but I am not attempting to do a scientific study here, but it's close enough for the purpose of this article). So, in that situation, Microsoft shipped only 47 Vista licenses for each 100 PC sold and there is the clear indication that Windows 7 is vastly more successful than Vista - not just in absolute numbers, but in a market share view as well. We don't know how many Windows 7 and Vista licenses went into upgrades, but given the fact that Vista could not impact Windows XP's market share, I tend to believe that Vista completely failed in the upgrade market and a good portion of Windows 7 shipments are in the upgrade cycle as XP PCs get old (or really old) and are being replaced (and Vista PCs are upgraded).

But what about XP? There are hardly any numbers available as far as XP shipments are concerned. Microsoft said two months after XP launch that 17 million licenses had been sold and Wikipedia quotes an article at ITworld.com (the article is not available anymore) in which an IDC analyst apparently estimated that 400 million XP copies were in use in January 2006 - or about 50 months after the OS's launch.

Assuming that the analyst was somewhat right, that would put XP sales roughly in the area of 8 million units per month (400 million units divided by 50 months) - or the same monthly volume that was achieved by Vista. The difference, however, is that far fewer PCs were sold during those 50 months than during the 48 months of Windows Vista availability. For example, Gartner estimates that about 132 million PCs were sold in 2002, 169 million in 2003, 189 million in 2004 and 212 million in 2005. With a reasonable adjustment for an extra 2 months to compensate for the aforementioned Windows XP sales period of 50 months, it appears that Microsoft sold about 400 million XP licenses during a time when about 730 million PCs were sold (more than 1.1 billion PCs were sold during the lifetime of Vista.) So, Microsoft sold about 55 XP licenses for every 100 PCs that were sold in this example - if the unknown IDC analyst is right - and excluding any double or retired XP licenses that are canceled out by the statement of "active" licenses.

Of course, these are equations that only loosely relate to each other. What they do tell us, however, is that Windows 7 is in fact a tremendously successful operating system for Microsoft.

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mauller07 07/14/2011 2:39 PM

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i take all this as windows 7 being the decent upgrade from xp, while vista started implementing the features that would be improved in windows 7, it was rushed in places. this caused bad publicity and the decline in uptake of vista. i still know many tech illiterate people who hate vista on its original release even after sp2 helping alleviate many of the problems.

hangfirew8 07/14/2011 2:55 PM

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Vista is still slow to appear to react to user interaction, even after SP2. It doesn't matter if Vista is "faster" than XP by running an app in 30 seconds instead of XP's 32... if it takes 3-4 seconds to give the user feedback that they've even launched the app.

On top of fixing perceived speed, Windows 7 has a significantly better performing TCP/IP stack.

Some folks with overclocked i7 quad cores and 8-16GB of memory say smugly "Vista runs fast for me!" Meanwhile the average Vista user with a slow dual core Turion and 1GB of RAM is wondering if she should double click again, or wait a few more seconds.

In other words... there are still plenty of good reasons to hate on Visa, even for the technically literate.

Anonymous 07/14/2011 3:00 PM

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deleted previous user's innappropriate post.

Evidently you give enough of a &%#$ to bother clicking on the article, scrolling down to the bottom, typing "i don't give a &%#$" and pressing "Submit my comment".

Seems a massive amount of effort to go to for somebody who supposedly doesn't 'give a &%#$'.

bloodlust22 07/14/2011 3:01 PM

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icedeocampo 07/14/2011 3:13 PM

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A graph would be able to easily convey the idea in this write up which is vague to say the least.

dark_knight33 07/14/2011 3:14 PM

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You're article makes quite a bit of assumptions in your analysis, but the way you state your conclusion makes it seem like simple math. The truth of the matter is, the sales figures used are mostly released by Microsoft. Perception is everything; if you want your product to be successful, people need to think it's successful.

W7 may be a better OS than Vista (this is true in my own experience), but given the research figures your article relies on should be taken with a grain of salt, so should your article. ;-)

spookyman 07/14/2011 3:19 PM

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-3

Windows XP came out a year after Windows 2000 was launched. There was no launch party or campaign when it released to push the OS out to the masses compared to 2000, Vista or 7.

beavermml 07/14/2011 3:27 PM

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you know.. i think vista plays a very important part for windows 7.. we all know that vista is so bloated and i cant help wondering that may be microsft purposely did that so it can somehow force us to upgrade our machine ( or buy new one ) in preparation for next windows.. i cannot help wondering that the next windows ( 8? ) will be so bloated that we again have to upgrade our machine or buy a new one just to boot it... so that our pc will be ready for the next windows 9?.. well... i dont think any standard computing ( office, web surfing, etc ) needs more than a core2duo UNLESS the OS really bloated...

lradunovic77 07/14/2011 3:31 PM

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f-gomes 07/14/2011 3:47 PM

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bloodlust22 :
WOW, So in other words alot of OEM's have bought a great deal of keys in bulk. Again, WOW. Instead of MS showing skewed data, Why not show how many of those 400 million keys have actually been activated by a end user? I highly doubt there's 400 million users out there running Windows 7. I would guess maybe 100-150 million are actually running Windows 7 while they other 250 - 300 million are still sitting at Dell, HP, Sony, Store shelves, etc...etc...

And how can yuo justify such a guess? Just a hunch? That's worth 0, as I'm sure you know.

belardo 07/14/2011 3:50 PM

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Win2000 didnt have much of a launch... That went to windows ME. Then xp came out soon afterward as the proper os to replace win9x OSes. There was fanfare for xp.

The numbers are even lower for Vista. Why? A lot of people replaced vista with upgrades to XP. And throughout vistas life, xp oem was available. Think pads continued to sell with xp, etc. Keep in mind... Even when a company like Lenovo sold a Thinkpad with xp, it WAS SOLD with a vista licence with an XP option. Ie: if they sold 500,000 with xp, they were only counted as Vista sales.

I only know of one person I meant in rearl life who though Vista was good. I have 2 PCs with Win7... I'd never ever would except vista on my hardware... I'd take xp first. Note: win7 ain't perfect... It's faults are same as vistas.

RazberyBandit 07/14/2011 3:56 PM

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I kinda said something similar in yesterday's announcement article. The only issue I have with what you've said is that none of the data presented was from Microsoft, save the numbers of licenses sold. Microsoft isn't making any comparative analogy, Wolfgang is.

The sheer number of PCs sold has risen drastically since XP's day, naturally. Why naturally? World population increase is one factor, and progress within nations with economies that have grown over the last ~10 years (India, China, Korea, former Eastern-Bloc, and some Middle East nations) is another. With increased PC demand comes increased OS license sales. So, it's only logical to see Win7 reach XP's total number sold in less time.

Wolfgang's comparison shows that Win7 has sold in a greater ratio to PCs sold than it's predecessors. How many of these licenses are actually in use presently is something we simply don't know. I'd venture to guess many, if not most, as the numbers show Win7 licenses have sold rather steadily over it's short lifetime,

bloodlust22 07/14/2011 4:21 PM

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mchuf 07/14/2011 4:35 PM

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hangfirew8 :
Meanwhile the average Vista user with a slow dual core Turion and 1GB of RAM is wondering if she should double click again, or wait a few more seconds.In other words... there are still plenty of good reasons to hate on Visa, even for the technically literate.

Since 2 gb of ram is recommended for Vista. People with only 1gb should wonder why it's so damn slow. Hell, 1 gb of ram in XP is kinda slow.

hachem 07/14/2011 4:53 PM

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i remember the time where i preferred the much hated windows me to xp. XP only became enjoyable/workable for me starting from service pack 2, before that, it was sh...
i also learned to enjoy vista, even though it took me an hour to tweak it each time i installed it. so upgrading to windows 7 was indeed a great positive change. i consider windows 7 as the actual vista sp3.

cookoy 07/14/2011 5:04 PM

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only microsoft can have the exact figures of how much licenses were sold. win7 does seem to be the fastest selling one, given that a lot of people were waiting to replace their aging xp or were holding off on using vista. what is interesting is the actual number of xp vs win7 that were in used - from all sources, legally (purchased/licensed) and illegally (pirated, cracked)

Anonymous 07/14/2011 5:08 PM

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You know bloodlust22, the plural of anecdote isn't data.

hellwig 07/14/2011 6:00 PM

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I agree with the principle, even if the number might be a bit off.

Think about every computer sitting in a box in BestBuy or Staples. Think about every physical copy of Windows 7 (Home, Pro, Ultimate) sitting on the shelves. Think about the millions more computers and retail boxes sitting in the warehouses of Dell, HP, Newegg, etc... Every one of those has a Windows 7 License attached to it, and NONE of them are being used. It's not hard to imagine a few dozen million (maybe 100 million) unused licenses as we speak.

It's the same with the record and book industries. The "sales" numbers for newly released albums and books are the number of units shipped to a retailer. Ever walk into a store and see 100 copies of the same CD marked down to $5? Well, Sony BMG or Warner Bros claimed all 100 of those CDs as sales, even if no one buys them. You ever go to a wholesale/overstock book store? Those books are all returns. The publishers initially claimed them as sales, then the stores returned them (oops), and now they're 3-for-$10. Sure, that latest Vampire thriller sold 10-million copies, but 9-million ended up at a flea-market.

Long story short, the numbers released by the company doing the releasing are pretty meaningless this day and age.

Anonymous 07/14/2011 6:26 PM

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Your statement shows how little you know about retail environments. Most retail stores only pay for books, magazines, movies, and games/software that they sell. Not that they get shipped to them. There are exceptions, but generally if a retailer like Wal-mart, Target, or Best Buy doesn't sell it, then the vendors, merchandisers, and sales representatives from the various distribution companies have to come and pick it back up and take it back. The final word is, the sale is only a sale once it is scanned at the register and removed from the retailer's inventory. This only applies to OS licenses sold to stores as retail box copies, however. Licenses packaged in with whatever garbage is on the shelf in the store are already sold, but those were sold to someone else.

Also, you know very little about manufacturing. Companies do not buy massive amounts of something in order for it to sit in a warehouse waiting to be mated up with other components and a finished product built out of it. Nearly all factories only maintain enough inventory to build a certain amount of product over a certain length of time, and it doesn't make sense to order many hundreds of thousands of something only to wait for it to be mated up with other assembly materials.

Anonymous 07/14/2011 7:37 PM

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maddy143ded 07/14/2011 8:08 PM

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captaincharisma 07/14/2011 8:24 PM

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mchuf :
Since 2 gb of ram is recommended for Vista. People with only 1gb should wonder why it's so damn slow. Hell, 1 gb of ram in XP is kinda slow.

no all the hate on vista is pure ignorance. it came from all the people who bought a copy of vista and expected it to run on there 800mhz PC's with 256-512MB of ram. the hate on vista was just plain ignorance

70camaross396 07/14/2011 8:37 PM

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I think what most people forget is that a lot people hated XP when it was first launched. because it would not run thier old DOS programs or games like 9x would. lots of people "upgraded" to win 98SE. same thing with Vista. a lot of people hated it but when i ask someone why they hate it, the always say it "slow". my question is "slow" compared to what? the only 3 issues i saw with vista were 1. user account control. 2. people trying to use it on PC that did not meet the recommended specs. 3. people using the 64 bit version and trying to run thier old 16bit programs form 1994 on it. I had Vista 64 bit ultimate, on a Intel Core 2 duo 1.8 ghz, 2 GB of Ram, and a 320 GB hard drive. I never had a minutes trouble with it. I think Vista got a bad wrap because of the 3 issues that i listed above and the fact that Apple took advantage of it with "I am a Mac" ad compain to spread the propaganda that "Vista sucks". lets not forget that Server 2008 is based on the same sorce code as Vista, and i have not heard any system administrators that i talk to complain about server 2008 being "slow".

one other thing in this article that doen't add up is the math. 55 out of 100 pc sold had XP? that means 45 out of every 100 pc sold had a diffrent OS. is microsoft suppost to have a 94% market share? shouldnt this be 90 out of 100 pc had windows? take out the 5% Apple Share and the 1% linux market shared, that leaves 94 out of every 100 PC that should have winows XP licenses. Microsoft discontinued 9x right after XP launched. granted 2k was still available for downgrades of busniesses. but even then then the numbers dont add up.

Darkerson 07/14/2011 8:39 PM

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captaincharisma :
no all the hate on vista is pure ignorance. it came from all the people who bought a copy of vista and expected it to run on there 800mhz PC's with 256-512MB of ram. the hate on vista was just plain ignorance

There was also the whole debacle of Intel "persuading" Microsoft into allowing certain chipsets to be labeled as Vista Capable and whatnot, when they both knew they were not. So was that customer ignorance when the 2 companies were duping people into believing their hardware was capable of something it was not?

tommysch 07/14/2011 8:58 PM

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mauller07 :
i take all this as windows 7 being the decent upgrade from xp, while vista started implementing the features that would be improved in windows 7, it was rushed in places. this caused bad publicity and the decline in uptake of vista. i still know many tech illiterate people who hate vista on its original release even after sp2 helping alleviate many of the problems.

I work in IT and I loved Vista when it came out. The only problem was the sound driver debacle with Creative. The thing is that I didnt try to piggy back it on a P4 with 256MB of RAM.

tommysch 07/14/2011 9:01 PM

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lradunovic77 :
Funny thing is that Windows XP will be still dominant when Windows 8 is released which means that people don't want what MS is trying to push since Windows Vista and that is bloatware OS.

On steam:

Windows 7 64 bit - 38.57%
Windows XP 32 bit - 19.98%
Windows Vista 32 bit - 12.54%
Windows Vista 64 bit - 11.68%
Windows 7 32 bit - 10.13%
MacOS 10.6.7 64 bit - 4.43%
Windows XP 64 bit - 0.95%

tommysch 07/14/2011 9:03 PM

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hachem :
i remember the time where i preferred the much hated windows me to xp. XP only became enjoyable/workable for me starting from service pack 2, before that, it was sh...i also learned to enjoy vista, even though it took me an hour to tweak it each time i installed it. so upgrading to windows 7 was indeed a great positive change. i consider windows 7 as the actual vista sp3.

Sorry but ME SUCKED. Vista was a master piece in comparison.

whysobluepandabear 07/14/2011 9:14 PM

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livebriand 07/14/2011 11:48 PM

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whysobluepandabear :
NO it's not. I have over 360MB of free RAM - that's with XP running & Firefox (3 tabs). 1GB for web browsing, movie watching and pretty much anything that doesn't involve gaming is PERFECTLY fine. Then again I only have 31 processes running, but it's not my fault that I know what does and does not need to be running.

Actually, it is. I have a friend with a desktop with 1GB DDR2 RAM and an Athlon x2 2.1GHz GPU. That thing was a dog, even after I reinstalled the OS. I added 2GB RAM to it, bringing it to 3GB, and performance was MUCH MUCH MUCH better. It was quite responsive after that. Though I bet it would be even better under Windows 7. (note: I'm talking about 32-bit Vista)

walter87 07/15/2011 12:09 PM

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f-14 07/15/2011 12:13 PM

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-2

at the people defending vista:
my system build friend first d/l vista when it came out, me and my system admin friends were at his house and watched him install it (we already had played with the beta release).
he formatted his primo athlon 64 system after burning the vista install to dvd. started installing while we all watched with merriment in our eyes and groans on our lips. after 4 blue screen crashes on his machine it vista finally installed successfully (or so it seemed) he loaded his drivers which more then half failed completely (despite saying they were vista ready).
the correct size of his hdd did not register full amount of drive, most of his programs despite vista ready claims would not run or crashed continuously. NONE of the games would run ,company of heros, remember that gem, that i can specifically remember when he smashed his keyboard in anger and disgust over it. his brand new printer and scanner he bought just because they were vista certified wouldn't work, couldn't print out help articles from microsoft.
turns out most of the drivers made did not work for vista, games didn't work, and the OS wouldn't finish an install with out blue screening a few times.
the screams of lag and bloating didn't come until later when the drivers were all fixed. he repeated this same grueling procedure on his dual core and core2 duo machines with pretty much the same result before loading XP back onto all of his machines.
his anger was such that none dared laugh or crack a smile after his finding out what we beta testers already knew: vista was only fit for garbage cans.