Android overtakes Windows to become the world's most used operating system

Microsoft’s Windows 10 may have been the most dominant desktop OS used, but modern users are moving on to doing their computing on mobile devices like Apple’s iOS powered iPhone and Samsung’s Android-powered Galaxy phones.

According to a report from Statcounter, Microsoft’s Windows has finally lost out to Google’s Android for the first time ever – with Windows accounting for 37.91% of online users, and 37.93% online users running Android smartphones of various flavors. 

“This is a milestone in technology history and the end of an era,” commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter. “It marks the end of Microsoft’s leadership worldwide of the OS market which it has held since the 1980s. It also represents a major breakthrough for Android which held just 2.4% of global internet usage share only five years ago.”

It goes without saying that the loss of Windows Phone in the smartphone hit Microsoft’s goals with regards to the dominating the mobile world as well as desktop,  hard. The firm even went as far as blaming it for its projected failure to reach 1 billion Windows 10 users.

“Windows won the desktop war but the battlefield moved on,” said Cullen. “It will be difficult for Microsoft to make inroads in mobile but the next paradigm shift might give it the opportunity to regain dominance. That could be in Augmented Reality, AI, Voice or Continuum (a product that aims to replace a desktop and smartphone with a single Microsoft-powered phone).”

Its not all bad news, as Microsoft is teaming up with Android OEMs to create software for their devices and integrate their services like Cortana and the Office apps into their very own mobile devices. With devices like the Samsung Galaxy S8 being shipped with Microsoft’s software, and Cortana integrating with the lockscreen of Android phones.

As StatCounter noted, the mobile OS war is over, Android has won, Windows has lost. Now all parties are looking for the new frontier.