It seems that when Microsoft announced that Windows 8.1 will be offered as a free update for Windows 8 users, many were interested and finally got Windows 8 installed in their computers. This is probably one of the reasons why the latest worldwide OS market share data from Net Applications is showing that Windows 8 gained big in June 2013 when it comes to its share of the Microsoft OS distribution. Net Applications based its figures from data captured from 160 million unique visitors each month as it monitors more than 40,000 websites for its clients.

According to the report, Windows 8 has now passed the 5% mark having gained 0.83% from 4.27% share to 5.10% in June 2013. Incidentally, it has also no w officially surpassed the share of Windows Vista. Windows 7 on the other hand slipped down to 0.48%, from 44.85% to 44.37%. Finally, Windows XP has lost the most with 0.57%, from 33.74% to 37.17%.

In the worldwide OS market share for 2012, overall Windows was finally able to gain after losing for six months. Microsoft should credit this gain to Windows 7 and Windows 8. For 2013 however, the overall performance of Windows OS is not good at all having lost market share every month except in March.

And while Microsoft continues to lose market share, others are taking advantage as both Apple’s OS X and Linux OS gained some market shares. OS X gained 0.13 percentage points while Linux OS gained 0.02 percentage points.

[via The Next Web]