Windows 10 reaches 400 million devices as growth slows down after free upgrade time period expires

Windows 10 has seen enormous growth due to numerous improvements over previous versions and an offer for one year of a free upgrade. Microsoft previously announced in July that Windows 10 had reached 350 million active installs in a time period of just one year. Now, at their Microsoft Ignite event in Atlanta, Microsoft just announced that Windows 10 has reached another milestone — 400 million active devices.

Even though this rate of growth is astounding, and much faster than anything Windows 7 or 8 achieved, Microsoft is still far off their earlier estimate of running 1 billion Windows 10 devices by 2018. The growth rate of Windows 10 is expected to slow down now that free upgrade time period is now over. Getting to 1 billion devices by 2018 is very difficult for Microsoft and its marketing chief is aware of this fact.

Even though Microsoft may not reach its earlier goal of 1 billion devices by 2018, there is no denying that Windows 10 has shown excellent growth. It is arguably the best version of Windows yet and has many features which will appeal to different type of users. Microsoft is slowly covering all bases by recently releasing a major update for Windows 10. Microsoft is expected to further refine it with two major updates in 2017. These gradual improvements will go a long way in helping Microsoft achieve its goal of a billion active Windows 10 devices.