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Microsoft Has Sold 300 Million Windows 7 Licences

by - source: Tom's Hardware US

We already know that Windows 7 has seen a much more positive reception than its predecessor, Windows Vista. Last summer Microsoft announced that it had shipped an impressive 175 million Windows 7 licenses. So how are sales now that the OS has been available for more than a year?

As part of its quarterly earnings call yesterday, Microsoft revealed that the company has now sold 300 million Windows 7 licenses.

“To put that in perspective, 300 million is roughly the combined number of households in North American and in Europe!” writes Brandon LeBlanc on the Windows blo. “Or, to put it another way, if you lined up 300 million Windows 7 product boxes, they would stretch nearly 1.5 times around the Earth,” he said.

LeBlanc also reported that over 20 percent of Internet-connected PCs in the world are running Microsoft’s latest iteration of Windows. This is up from the 16 percent he reported in July of last year. However, all is not rosy on the Windows front. Bloomberg reports that Microsoft’s Windows revenue of $5.05 billion missed the $5.2 billion figure that represents an average of of analysts’ estimates.

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Ragnar-Kon 01/29/2011 5:28 AM
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Definitely liking Windows 7 so far. I just hope Windows 8 doesn't come out too soon. One of the things I really liked about Windows XP is that it lasted me a good 6-7 years before I had to even think about dishing out more money for a newer operating system.

Although if they made the Windows 7 -> 8 upgrade cost around $30... then I say bring on the Windows 8.

dkant1n 01/29/2011 5:36 AM
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Win 7 forced people to upgrade their computers but with vista they expected to use the same old xp pc. Still 7 is way better

maziar321 01/29/2011 5:38 AM
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Well, think of it this way. Windows had 80% market share. The best version yet only has 20% market share. I don't think this is an accomplishment.

existencenow 01/29/2011 5:49 AM
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maziar321 :
Well, think of it this way. Windows had 80% market share. The best version yet only has 20% market share. I don't think this is an accomplishment.


What your missing when you read this is that, 20% of the computers connected to the net are running on specifically WIN 7. That is quite profound if you take in the true capactity of the internet's attendance. All of that attendance allocate to ONE Variation of an operating system is impressive at the least.

compton 01/29/2011 5:54 AM
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Besides people like myself, like the readers of Toms, that build or upgrade their own computers, most people just buy entire new computers. You buy a laptop, you get Win 7. You had and xp desktop, it had some issues, so you buy a new computer with Win 7. If you had an eMachines from 5 years ago (and by some miracle the PSU didn't croak until last week) you just buy a new one. To most users, it seems more effective to just buy a new one. The computer servicing industry isn't really the service industry of the future. So I'm glad Windows 7 is selling well. It is an excellent product. But people aren't really buying retail packages, they're just buying new units. The Windows license adds a considerable amount of cash to a new build when you roll your own. Microsoft should do two things concerning Windows; 1) drop the different versions. the Mac OS is just the Mac OS, not Mac OS home, pro, or ultimate. Make one good version of Windows 8, not three tiers. 2) Make a more attempts to reach out to the enthusiast market with deals on the OS. The system builder deals are a good start, but I don't think MS cares. Charge us less, and charge Dell more.

freshnbaked 01/29/2011 6:00 AM
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Most companies haven't switched from XP, it works, everything supports it and that's roughly 19% of the world's computers. I doubt that it'll change anytime soon. Until then 96% (according from intel) win7 sold are for personal computers.


Oh and 99% of statistics are made up.

ethaniel 01/29/2011 6:20 AM
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That's just sold licenses. I believe there's even more copies of Windows 7 working right now. Don't forget, the thing's incredibly easy to, (ehem), "activate". Actually, you don't even need to do that, if you can tolerate reinstalling every four months, because rearming the OS is, well, legal.

Zerk 01/29/2011 6:40 AM
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That means they made at Least $35,000,000,000,00 Billion Just off Windows 7.

JohnnyLucky 01/29/2011 6:41 AM
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I'd like to see how many copies of each Win 7 version were sold.

jamessneed 01/29/2011 7:08 AM
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Zerk, "$35,000,000,000,00 Billion " funny I assume you meant $35 billion? Anyhow they will not have made near that amount since big builders like Dell and HP get crazy volume discounts.

V8VENOM 01/29/2011 8:04 AM
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slycraft 01/29/2011 8:59 AM
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V8VENOM :
300 million is piss in the ocean compared to what Apple sales numbers across their product lines ... given that Microsoft is dead in the water when it comes to hardware.Tom's just refuses to publish the quarterly revenue of Apple vs. Microsoft ... I know it hurts Tom's to see Apple crushing Microsoft financially.



Why don't you post it for us with valid references...I'm actually quite curious about your claim.

nicodemus_mm 01/29/2011 9:25 AM
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@ V8VENOM,
Thank you. That's the best laugh I've had all day. Not at your statement... for all I know it's true. At your pure, unadulterated fanboyism. Congrats.

apache_lives 01/29/2011 9:27 AM
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die xp die!

Nexus52085 01/29/2011 9:52 AM
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V8VENOM :
300 million is piss in the ocean compared to what Apple sales numbers across their product lines ... given that Microsoft is dead in the water when it comes to hardware.Tom's just refuses to publish the quarterly revenue of Apple vs. Microsoft ... I know it hurts Tom's to see Apple crushing Microsoft financially.


Go to the Cult of Mac. Even they are honestly reporting the stats. I believe 11% is Apple's most recent market share.

back_by_demand 01/29/2011 10:53 AM
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V8VENOM :
300 million is piss in the ocean compared to what Apple sales numbers across their product lines ... given that Microsoft is dead in the water when it comes to hardware.Tom's just refuses to publish the quarterly revenue of Apple vs. Microsoft ... I know it hurts Tom's to see Apple crushing Microsoft financially.


Since when does quarterly mean anything? How about annual figures 2010?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc.
Microsoft did $62.4 billion revenue and $18.7 billion profit
Apple did $65.2 billion revenue and $14 billion profit
So Microsoft took less revenue but got more profit

Hardly "piss in the ocean" as you call it, my professional opinion is that you are an idiot

enforcer22 01/29/2011 11:00 AM
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V8VENOM :
300 million is piss in the ocean compared to what Apple sales numbers across their product lines ... given that Microsoft is dead in the water when it comes to hardware.Tom's just refuses to publish the quarterly revenue of Apple vs. Microsoft ... I know it hurts Tom's to see Apple crushing Microsoft financially.




Are you high? your going to compare the sales of just a single thing MS sells their OS to EVERYTHING apple sells. Are you high? lets compare OS to OS sales? yeah i know waste of time because apple has what no market share? go compare another orange to that apple.

zybch 01/29/2011 11:06 AM
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11% in the US ONLY. Worldwide it still is hovering between 4% and 5%.

endgadget 01/29/2011 11:59 AM
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I must admit, I loved it when lazy oems released Vista desktops with 512Mb back in the day and... MS got the flack :)
"Vista runs really slow".. could be due to lack of ram!
"Vista uses all my memory".. Yeah, that could be due to CACHING and using it instead of it sitting there doing nothing
"Vista takes ages".. Could be due to the 5400rpm laptop drive and 74 services, 6 from iTunes alone.

Ahhh, Microsoft, being blamed for others stupidity for years :)

P.s. Still can't post with Opera

endgadget 01/29/2011 12:00 PM
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V8VENOM :
300 million is piss in the ocean compared to what Apple sales numbers across their product lines ... given that Microsoft is dead in the water when it comes to hardware.Tom's just refuses to publish the quarterly revenue of Apple vs. Microsoft ... I know it hurts Tom's to see Apple crushing Microsoft financially.



Hah haa haaa haa (Falls off chair). Please, come back to the forum and comment on all the replies above :)

kronos_cornelius 01/29/2011 12:22 PM
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I only use Win7 for entertainment, Linux for all else. Yesterday I was watching a flash video from comedy central. The flash crashed, and a second later... I got the blue screen !!!!

Now is that common for every day Win7 users ?

I do have to admit I squeezed Win7 in a 15GB SSD partition, but I did the same with Linux and I have a gig left. With Win7 it barely fits.

To the point... 300 million sounds nice.

doron 01/29/2011 12:44 PM
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Really hope they'll improve battery management with windows 8 by giving us a friendly UI to closing unneeded services or whatever, since battery life in os x is about 1.5-2 times better than that of windows 7 =/

Then again it might be cuz of better security protocols / wider compatibility of windows 7. Still sux tho

doron 01/29/2011 12:46 PM
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kronos_cornelius :
I only use Win7 for entertainment, Linux for all else. Yesterday I was watching a flash video from comedy central. The flash crashed, and a second later... I got the blue screen !!!!Now is that common for every day Win7 users ?I do have to admit I squeezed Win7 in a 15GB SSD partition, but I did the same with Linux and I have a gig left. With Win7 it barely fits.To the point... 300 million sounds nice.



Well, no BSODS for me in ages in any desktop / notebook me and my family owns. Unless I try push my desktop too far in ocing :p but that's just me.

tavix 01/29/2011 2:53 PM
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How many billions again?!?!?

cookoy 01/29/2011 3:43 PM
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impressive sales considering SP1 is still not out. but would it do this good if Vista was made better?

zoemayne 01/29/2011 4:25 PM
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no body buys the software people dont spend ~$200 to upgrade their OS they just get a new computer which is the smarter thing to do cause you get upgraded hardware my sis just bought a HP for $300 w win 7 and it has a superior intel processor compared to the HP I bought for $1500 a few years ago.

blppt 01/29/2011 4:35 PM
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I dont think I've ever seen a BSOD in the year I've used win 7, but in fairness, win 7 is basically Vista + a service pack, and they've had years to iron out the problems with Vista, and driver writers have had years to write stable drivers for the newish OS.

rantoc 01/29/2011 6:12 PM
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Win7 - Its fast, stable and nice. What else is there to say. OS at its best!

razorblaze42 01/29/2011 6:30 PM
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I like windows 7, recommend it to all my friends... but I still don't like the dam auto arrange files and folders.

kkiddu 01/29/2011 7:00 PM
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Can't wait to get a new build and Win 7 . Don't get me wrong, this XP thing is awesome, it's served me well over the years, but maybe it's finally time to get on with times.

xantek24 01/29/2011 7:11 PM
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so i guess a little more piracy wouldnt hurt their sales anymore would it? :P


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