Windows 8 PC Demand Low According To Consumer Survey

Windows 8 was released just a few weeks, and impressions from users have been good overall, but will people upgrade to it? Businesses and schools and are just now finishing up their complete rollouts of Windows 7, and some regular users are just now upgrading to Windows 7 or are at least still trying to get used to it. According to a survey conducted by Avast Antivirus, only 9% of Windows users in the US plan to upgrade to a new computer running Windows 8.

Avast polled 350,000 users of its PC antivirus software as part of a massive study to see what the public's opinion of Windows 8 was. According to the survey, 135,329 respondents were based in the United States. Among those US-based consumers, 65% were Windows 7 users, 22% used Windows XP, and 8% used Windows Vista.

Furthermore, 60% of respondents were aware of Windows 8 at least one day before it launched, which is a healthy number that indicates Microsoft was off to a good start as far as marketing and advertising their new OS before it officially launched. However, only 9% of US consumers said they would buy a new computer just to have Windows 8, and over 70% said they planned to stick with what they currently have.

Of course, this only is based on how many people would actually go out and buy a completely new machine that has Windows 8 on it, compared to those who are planning to just upgrade their current machines to Windows 8. Chances are, a good percentage of consumers may end up upgrading to Windows 8 at some point, but businesses and educational instituions most likely won't be in a huge rush to upgrade anytime soon.

[via USA Today]