The technology world passed a potentially huge marker today after Microsoft suffered a big blow in its push for global supremacy.
New data has found that Android overtook Microsoft’s Windows software in terms of worldwide users.
Google’s mobile software has benefitted from a major boom in demand to take top spot and topple Windows after nearly 30 years as number one.
Microsoft has previously said that it wants its Windows 10 software to be installed on more than a billion devices worldwide – although so far it has only hit around 400 million.
The news comes from online research company StatCounter, which continually monitors the number of users worldwide.
It found that Android took 37.93 per cent of all internet usage across dekstop, laptop, tablet and mobile during the month of March 2017.
Windows devices took 37.91 per cent, meaning it was knocked off top spot for the first time since the 1980s.
The news is particularly striking, given that Android only had 2.4 per cent of all internet usage just five years ago.
“This is a milestone in technology history and the end of an era,” commented Aodhan Cullen, StatCounter CEO.
“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 per cent of global internet usage share only five years ago.”
He notes that the incredible growth of Android smartphones in markets such as China and India were a major driver behind the platform’s success, as was the decline of the PC sales market.
It’s not all bad news for Microsoft, however, as Windows still dominates the worldwide desktop market, taking an 84 per cent share, far ahead of Apple’s Mac software.
Microsoft also still holds power in Europe, where its 51.7 per cent share is more than twice the level of Android, which was on 23.6 per cent.
Windows also took top spot in North America, however its Asian market share of 52.2 per cent was nearly double that of Windows on 23.6 per cent.
Google will be hoping that its next mobile release will help it continue to grow its market share further.
Android O was officially shown off for the first time last month, marking Google’s latest software build.
The company revealed a number of new features in the software, including a picture-in-picture mode for phones, the ability to cut what apps run in the background to save valuable battery life, and changes in how notifications are displayed.
It’s thought that the company will now show off more details about the software at it’s Google I/O event next month.
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