Windows 11's usage share marked time in April 2022 according to AdDuplex

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Last month, usage share growth of Microsoft's Windows 11 operating system slowed down to a crawl according to the monthly stats that AdDuplex releases. At 19.4% of all observed systems, Windows 11's share rose by just 0.1% in March 2022. This month, shares rose by 0.3% to a total of 19.7% according to AdDuplex.



AdDuplex is a third-party that is computing the statistics from about 5000 Windows Store applications that it monitors. The data is limited to the Windows 10 and 11 operating systems. If it would include all versions of Windows and other desktop operating systems, Windows 11's usage share would be even lower at this point.

Windows 10 is the dominating operating system in the pie chart. The latest release Windows 10 version 21H2 grew to 35% overall, an increase of 6.5% over last month. Windows 10 version 21H1 managed to gain 0.1% in the month to a total of 26.4% in April 2022.

Home and Pro editions of Windows 10 version 20H2 reach end of support next month; usage share dropped as a consequence, as Microsoft is offering and installing upgrades automatically on some devices, and administrators are upgrading to supported versions of Windows 10. Microsoft plans to launch Windows 10 version 22H2 later this year, as it moved to a one feature update per year release cadence.

Closing Words

The usage share gains of Windows 11 have been disappointing in the past two months. The operating system managed to gain 0.4% in the two months. The released numbers give a rough view of the market only. Statcounter and Steam have not released statistics for April yet, but if the March 2022 stats are an indicator, it is unlikely that they will show large usage share increases.

Are there explanations for the slow growth? Windows 11 is available as a free upgrade to all compatible Windows 10 PCs. Microsoft did change the system requirements of Windows 11, which excludes an unknown percentage of devices from the upgrade via Windows Update. While there are ways around this, most users may be unaware of them or lack the expertise to follow instructions.

Windows 10 is supported until 2025, and part of the userbase may prefer to stay on the running system at this time. There is still time to upgrade to Windows 11 later on, when the operating system has matured.

Now You: what is your take on this development? Will Windows 11 surpass Windows 10 in the coming years?
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