Windows 8.1 gains traction among desktop OS users
It's early days still, but the new update to Windows 8 grabbed just under 2 percent of all desktop OS traffic seen by Net Applications last month.
Windows 8.1 has snagged a healthy number of users since its official debut on October 17.
The latest version of Windows captured 1.72 percent of all desktop OS traffic recorded by Web tracker Net Applications in October. That number was up from the 0.87 percent seen in September and the 0.24 percent in August.
Windows 8.1 surfaced as a preview edition in June before taking its official bow last month. Since the upgrade is free to Windows 8 users, a healthy chunk of the increased traffic likely comes from people who have run that upgrade.
Windows 8 did also saw its share of desktop OS traffic drop to 7.53 percent in October from 8 percent in September, its first decline since hitting Net Applications' charts.
Windows 7 remained firmly in the top spot with a 46.4 percent share, leaving XP in second place with a share of 31.2 percent. Windows XP has held on despite its advanced years but has slowly been losing its share of traffic. Microsoft is due to cut off support for XP in April 2014.
On the mobile OS front, iOS remained dominant as its share of traffic rose to 55.3 percent in October from 53.6 percent the previous month. Android inched up to 30.5 percent from 29.4 percent. The BlackBerry OS lost ground as its share fell to 2.5 percent from 3.2 percent following a series of gains during the summer.
