Microsoft reports 40m Windows 8 licences sold after just one month

28 Nov 2012

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer launching Windows 8 a month ago

Software player Microsoft has revealed the company has sold 40m Windows 8 licences since the operating system went on sale a month ago.

Newly appointed Windows chief Tami Reller revealed the number at the Credit Suisse 2012 Annual Technology Conference. The number was reiterated in a blog post last night.

“The journey is just beginning, but I am pleased to announce today that we have sold 40m Windows 8 licences so far,” Reller told the conference.

She also revealed that a number of apps in the Windows Store have crossed the US$25,000 revenue mark. Microsoft shares 80pc of the revenue from the sale of an app with developers.

A report by Distimo has pointed out that the top 300 apps in the Windows Store have an average download of 200,000 a day, which is more than the top 300 apps in the Mac App Store, which are at around 80,000 daily downloads.

According to Distimo, there are now 21,183 apps in the Windows Store, compared with 13,000 in the Mac App Store.

However, Microsoft, which launched Windows Phone 8 around the same time as Windows 8, still has considerable catching up to do on the mobile front and 21,000 or so apps isn’t a patch on the 600,000 available in the iOS App Store or on Google Play.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com