Windows 8 40 million

Windows 8: 40 million licences sold in one month

Microsoft has announced that its new operating system is on track to outsell Windows 7, with 40 million copies sold so far.

This is the first indication of Windows 8 sales since Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer revealed that the company saw four million Windows 8 upgrades in four days.

“Windows 8 is outpacing Windows 7 in terms of upgrades. We built Windows 8 to work great on existing Windows 7 PCs. And we also set out to make upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 8 super easy,” reads the Windows blog.

Although the figure sounds a lot, it does not mean 40 million copies have made their way into consumer hands, as the number includes those sold to manufacturers building Windows 8 hardware. The fact that upgrading to Windows 8 is cheaper than the upgrade to Windows 7 will have had some effect of those willing to try out a new OS this time around.  

With the launch of Microsoft’s new OS five weeks ago, came the grand opening of the Windows Store, which launched with more apps than any other app store on start up. Since then the number of apps in the Windows Store has doubled, growing to over 21,000.

The announcement from Microsoft did not specify how well Windows 8 devices are selling in comparisons to past launches.