San Francisco, Mar 17 (IANS): Tech giant Microsoft has announced that there are now over a billion active devices running Windows 10 worldwide.

"We are delighted to announce that over one billion people have chosen Windows 10 across 200 countries resulting in more than one billion active Windows 10 devices. We couldn't be more grateful to our customers, partners and employees for helping us get here," Yusuf Mehdi Corporate Vice President, Modern Life, Search and Devices, Microsoft said in a statement.

This number includes all Windows 10 devices, such as Xbox One consoles, HoloLens, and PCs. Microsoft says that Windows 10 is powering PCs in over 80,000 different models and configurations from over 1,000 different OEMs.

"Reaching a billion people with Windows 10 is just the beginning. We will invest in Windows not only within Windows 10 for PCs but also across many other Windows editions, serving diverse customer needs including Windows IoT, Windows 10 Teams edition for Surface Hub, Windows Server, Windows Mixed Reality on HoloLens, Windows 10 in S mode, Windows 10X and more," he added.

The milestone is notable because the company originally aimed to hit 1 billion devices running Windows 10 "in two to three years" but the company took more than double its estimate and 20 months longer than its conservative estimate to pass 1 billion Windows 10 devices.

The new billion figure also comes just a couple of months after support ended for Windows 7.