Microsoft Has Sold 300 Million Windows 7 Licences

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.

  • Ragnar-Kon
    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.
    Reply
  • dkant1n
    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
    Reply
  • 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.
    Reply
  • existencenow
    maziar321Well, 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.
    Reply
  • compton
    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.
    Reply
  • freshnbaked
    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.
    Reply
  • ethaniel
    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.
    Reply
  • Zerk
    That means they made at Least $35,000,000,000,00 Billion Just off Windows 7.
    Reply
  • JohnnyLucky
    I'd like to see how many copies of each Win 7 version were sold.
    Reply
  • JamesSneed
    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.
    Reply