Microsoft says 20 million copies of Vista sold
27 Mar 2007
Microsoft has reported having sold 20 million consumer copies of the new Windows Vista operating system worldwide in February 2007. Microsoft said that in 2001, Windows XP, Vista's predecessor, had sold 17 million copies in the two months after its release in 2001.
Analysts, however, say the Vista sales figure did not indicate the programme's popularity during its first month on the market.
Microsoft executives say that the sales were stronger than expected.
Michael A. Silver, vice president of research at Gartner, was quoted in The New York Times said that as the personal computer market had nearly doubled since XP was released, Vista's sales "probably should be more."
According to Silver 51 million PCs were sold worldwide in 2002 against 96 million predicted for this year.
