“We’re seeing people at home, at schools,
at small businesses, at large companies, and other organizations adopt Windows 10 faster than ever, and use Windows 10 more than ever before,” Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice president of
Microsoft’s Windows and Devices Group, notes in a new blog post.
People are playing games on Windows 10 more than ever before, with over 9 billion hours of gameplay on Windows 10
since launch.
In March alone, over 63 billion minutes were spent on Microsoft Edge. Quarter-over-quarter, the operating system has seen a 50% growth in minutes.
Meanwhile, Cortana --
the personal digital assistant in Windows 10 -- has helped answer over 6 billion questions since launch.
Microsoft has recently received support from some important players. Indeed, Facebook
recently launched updated Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram apps for Windows 10.
“These new apps will load quickly and easily within Windows and have the most up-to-date
features,” Davis Fields, Product Manager at Facebook, promised at the time of the launch.
For Windows 10 users, Facebook is now one click away from their Start Menu, while the app will
now start and load their News Feed faster than before.
For social giants, syncing with the latest Windows is key to maximizing user reach and engagement. Twitter unveiled a similar update, in mid-March.
Big as it is,
however, Windows 10 has not grown as fast as expected. In January -- five months after its official release -- Microsoft’s operating system hadn’t even passed 10% market share.
Over
the next couple of years, Microsoft is reportedly aiming for 1 billion
devices -- including PCs, smartphones, and consoles -- to be running Windows 10.
Facebook’s updates come help Microsoft’s cause. In particular, speedier load times are now critical
to engaging mobile consumers. Indeed, 63% of news consumers cited fast load times as most important to them, according to a nationally representative survey conducted earlier this year by the Media Insight Project
and funded by the American Press Institute.