Microsoft has sold 40 million licences for its new operating systems Windows 8, the company said yesterday.
“The journey is just the beginning, but I am pleased to announce today that we have sold 40 million Windows 8 licenses so far,” Microsoft’s head of Windows Tami Reller said at a Credit Suisse investors conference.
Sharing the information in a blog post, Microsoft added that Windows 8 is outpacing Windows 7 in terms of upgrade licences.
In the blog post, Microsoft also said its Windows Store is going from strength to strength since launching at the end of October. “There were more apps in the Windows Store at launch than any other app store at their launch and since then, the number of apps in the Windows Store has doubled,” wrote Brandon Le Blanc, communications manager at Microsoft.
“A number of apps in the Windows Store have crossed the $25,000 revenue mark and the developer keeps 80% of the revenue they make off downloads for the life of their app,” he wrote.
Earlier this month Reller replaced Microsoft’s recently-departed Windows Live president Steven Sinofsky, a figure many expected to succeed Steve Ballmer as the company’s CEO.
The move came shortly after Ballmer admitted to a French newspaper that the company had achieved “modest” sales of its Surface tablet to French newspaper Le Parisien. The company has yet to release the device’s sales figures.
Microsoft moved quickly to patch security holes in Windows 8 and Windows 8 RT, releasing the first update just weeks after the operation system went on sale.
Last week, the Financial Times reported that Microsoft was considering opening its own stores in the UK next year to emulate the success of its rival Apple.
