





Welcome to 2016! In the year ahead, we’re excited to bring you more Windows innovations, more incredible devices, and great new Windows apps and games that will deliver more productivity and entertainment experiences across the broadest range of devices.

As we start the new year, I want to provide an update on Windows 10 and Windows 10 devices. We continue to be excited – and humbled – by the incredible response to Windows 10. First, a few updates on how we’re tracking toward our goal of seeing Windows 10 active on more than one billion devices.

As of today, there are more than 200 million monthly active devices around the world running Windows 10.

And Windows 10 adoption is accelerating, with more than 40% of new Windows 10 devices becoming active since Black Friday.

In fact, Windows 10 continues to be on the fastest growth trajectory of any version of Windows – ever – outpacing Windows 7 by nearly 140% and Windows 8 by nearly 400%.

We’re seeing increased preference for Windows 10 with consumers. Since Black Friday, US retail PC share* for Windows 10 grew 16 points to 62% compared to the prior four weeks. Windows 10 mix of PCs rose to 87% from 58% prior to the holiday.

We are also seeing accelerating and unprecedented demand for Windows 10 among enterprise and education customers. As of today, more than 76% of our enterprise customers are in active pilots of Windows 10, and we now have over 22 million devices running Windows 10 across enterprise and education customers.

We are even more excited that these customers are loving Windows 10. Overall, we are seeing significantly higher customer satisfaction with Windows 10 than any prior version of Windows.

Highest Engagement on Windows Ever, With Over 11 Billion Hours on Windows 10 in December.

One of the ways we measure our progress with Windows 10 is looking at how people are using Windows. Recently we reached another milestone – people have spent over 11 billion hours on Windows 10 in December alone, spending more time on Windows than ever before.

While many people upgrade because they want the safest and fastest Windows, they are finding new experiences to enjoy and have fun with. Whether using our new web browser, getting help from Cortana, our personal assistant, playing games, or being productive, people are spending more and more time on Windows. And, as more and more people use Windows 10, it gets better for everyone as Cortana and Bing get smarter, our Edge browser compatibility is more broadly tested, we provide a more attractive market for developers, ultimately allowing us to deliver more and more features people love. Here are a few fun facts on what people have been doing on Windows 10:

Over 44.5 billion minutes spent in Microsoft Edge across Windows 10 devices in just the last month.

Over 2.5 billion questions asked of Cortana since launch.

Around 30% more Bing search queries per Windows 10 device vs. prior versions of Windows.

Over 82 billion photos viewed within the Windows 10 Photo app.

Gaming continues to grow on Windows 10 – in 2015, gamers spent over 4 billion hours playing PC games on Windows 10. Gamers have streamed more than 6.6 million hours of Xbox One games to Windows 10 PCs.

Windows Store sees Dramatic Growth in 2015, Creating Opportunities for Developers

A major investment in Windows 10 is delivering one platform that enables developers to reach the breadth of Windows 10 devices – across PC, tablet, phone, and more – with a single app and a single Windows Store. The new Windows Store has storefronts for both consumers and organizations, with new promotional surfaces to help people discover and acquire content. This approach is beginning to gain traction with 3 billion visits to the new Store and more universal apps becoming available for Windows 10, including Netflix, NPR, Pandora, Shazam, TuneIn Radio, Twitter, Uber, Wall Street Journal, 1-800-Flowers, and more. Top developers are also releasing new games to the Windows Store including Minecraft: Story Mode – a Telltale Game Series and World of Tanks Blitz, with more new titles coming in early 2016, such as Rise of the Tomb Raider. These developers see the opportunity hundreds of millions of customers present – and we’re just getting started.

The new Windows Store has seen:

2x increase in the number of paid transactions from PC and tablet customers this holiday season.

In December alone, 60% of paying customer were new to the Store.

In December, Windows 10 generated more than a 4.5x increase in revenue per device, as compared to Windows 8

Xbox has Best Holiday Ever; Surface Book Coming Soon to 10 More Markets

Our Windows 10 devices also had an incredible holiday, led by strong demand for Xbox One, Surface Pro and Surface Book. In fact, 2015 was the biggest year in Xbox history – with Xbox One setting record global engagement and sales. On December 28 there were more fans using Xbox Live than any other day in Xbox history. Now running Windows 10, Xbox One is faster and more social following the release of the New Xbox One Experience. Windows 10 makes all gaming better with a consistent gaming experience across devices by extending Xbox Live to every screen.

Coming off a great holiday in the US and Canada, we are excited to bring Surface to more people in more markets. Surface Book recently became available for pre-order in China and Hong Kong and today, I’m pleased to share that it will soon be available in a total of 10 new markets. Starting tomorrow, customers will be able to pre-order Surface Book in Austria, Australia, UK, France, Germany, Switzerland, and New Zealand and it will be coming soon to Japan. We’re also excited to bring Surface Pro to India in the coming weeks.

Microsoft HoloLens will continue to bring more opportunities to developers, with Microsoft HoloLens Development Edition coming soon. And, customers like Volvo Cars and Autodesk Fusion 360 are creating all new solutions with HoloLens at the center. We look forward to seeing what developers create in the year ahead.

The first Windows 10 phones, the Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL are now available worldwide and off to a great start, with initial demand outstripping our supply. We’re working actively to resupply the many stores which ran out of initial stock.

These are just a few of the recent highlights for Windows and our devices. We’re grateful for a strong 2015 and look forward to delivering more great experiences in 2016!

Thanks,

Yusuf

* The NPD Group, Weekly Retail PC Tablet Tracking data through 12/19/2015 (PC Share includes 2 and 1’s).