Microsoft exec Tami Reller tells investors Windows 8 passed 60 million licenses

Tami Reller (CFO) and Steve Ballmer (CEO) Microsoft (photo @Photo Creative Commons License)

Microsoft Corp sold 60 million licenses and upgrades for Windows 8 operating system in the ten weeks since its launch, Tami Reller Microsoft CFO said at the CES 2013 Consumer Electronics Show on Tuesday.

“Windows 8 sales are growing in line with those of Windows 7, Microsoft’s last operating system, launched in 2009,” said Tami Reller, chief financial officer of the Windows division, in a presentation to analysts and investors at the J.P. Morgan Tech Forum in Las Vegas. 

“This represents the cumulative sales of Windows 8 including both upgrades and sales to OEMs for new devices.”

“We have seen a significant increase in the number of Windows 8 certified systems since general availability at the end of October,” added Reller. “There are now more than 1,700 certified systems for Windows 8 and Windows RT. I suggest reading this post from Nick Parker putting the spotlight on several very cool new Windows 8 PCs announced by our OEM partners this week at CES.”

“This week we also highlighted strong growth in developers building for Windows 8. Since the opening of the Windows Store the number of apps has quadrupled and we passed the 100 million app download mark – just two months after general availability.”

The latest Windows 8 statistics mean Microsoft sold around 20 million Windows 8 licenses and upgrades since the end of November, when it said sales reached 40 million.

Windows 8 sales are comparable with Windows 7 which averaged 19.4 million sales per month in its first nine months on the market, when PC sales were running at a lower level than today.

Final sales numbers for PCs in 2012 are expected within weeks and industry estimates are sales dropped between 4% and 8% year over year.

People are delaying purchases and shifting to tablets and smartphones versus traditional Intel based computers that use Microsoft Windows.

Windows 8 is Microsoft’s hope for crossing the chasm and shipping Windows on phones, tablets, laptops and PCs. Mercury News and Microsoft