Seven months after Microsoft pulled the plug on Windows 10 support, roughly 30 percent of HP’s customer base is still running the decade-old operating system — a statistic that the world’s largest PC maker is framing not as a problem, but as an opportunity.
Ketan Patel, president of HP’s Personal Systems division, delivered the figure during the company’s fiscal 2026 second-quarter earnings call on May 27, 2026. The disclosure reveals an upgrade cycle that has moved far more slowly than many in the industry anticipated. Microsoft ended standard support for Windows 10 on October 14, 2025, yet a substantial portion of HP’s installed base has not transitioned to Windows 11. The percentage, Patel acknowledged, remains stubbornly near the 30 percent mark.
HP executives, however, are not sounding alarms. Instead, they are describing the lag as a “tailwind” — a reservoir of future demand that will materialize as enterprises and consumers eventually replace aging hardware. “The transition to Windows 11 still has 30 percent left,” Patel told investors. “That’s a tailwind, and it’s a good opportunity.” Chief Financial Officer Karen Parkhill added that the trend was particularly pronounced in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) and APJ (Asia-Pacific and Japan) regions.
The logic is straightforward: the longer customers delay upgrading, the larger the eventual wave of replacements. In the near term, that wave has already begun to lift HP’s financial results. Revenue for the quarter rose 9 percent year-over-year to approximately $14.4 billion (roughly ¥2.29 trillion), while net income reached $450 million (about ¥71.5 billion), beating market expectations.
Why the Windows 11 Transition Has Stalled
Calling the situation a tailwind glosses over a more uncomfortable reality. If the upgrade was supposed to be a tailwind, it was one that should have arrived months ago. The fact that it has not points to a set of structural and economic barriers that extend well beyond simple user inertia.
The most significant obstacle is hardware compatibility. Windows 11 requires a TPM 2.0 chip and a relatively modern processor — requirements that render a vast number of older PCs ineligible for the free upgrade path. Industry estimates suggest that between 200 million and 400 million existing Windows 10 devices worldwide cannot run Windows 11 without a full hardware replacement. For these users, upgrading is not a matter of clicking “update” but of buying an entirely new machine — a cost many are not ready to bear.
IT spending trends further explain the delay. Enterprise budgets are increasingly consumed by AI infrastructure, cloud migration, and cybersecurity, leaving endpoint upgrades lower on the priority list. A Gartner forecast from February 2026 projected global device spending growth of just 6.1 percent for the year. By contrast, software spending was expected to grow at 14.7 percent, and data center spending at an even more dramatic 31.7 percent. The message is clear: organizations are pouring money into back-end and AI capabilities while deferring PC refreshes.
An unexpected regulatory intervention also slowed the transition. In September 2025, the European consumer group Euroconsumers raised concerns that Microsoft’s Extended Security Updates (ESU) program for Windows 10 violated the EU’s Digital Markets Act. Microsoft subsequently reversed course and announced that it would provide free security updates to consumers in the European Economic Area through October 2026. The decision removed a key incentive for European users to upgrade or replace their machines, effectively granting a one-year reprieve that further suppressed short-term demand.
AI PCs: Another Tailwind or a Distraction?
Alongside the Windows 11 upgrade gap, HP executives have pointed to the rising share of AI-capable PCs as a second driver of future growth. According to the company’s earnings materials, AI PC shipments accounted for 44 percent of HP’s total PC volume in the most recent quarter, up from 35 percent in the prior period. Management projected that share would climb to 60–70 percent by fiscal 2027 and exceed 70 percent in fiscal 2028.
“Many customers are shifting workloads to the edge, and the rising cost of generative AI is reinforcing commercial demand,” Patel said during the call, framing AI PCs as a natural upgrade path for businesses looking to run local inference and reduce cloud dependency.
Yet the AI PC story remains more promise than proof. Critics have repeatedly pointed out that while these machines are significantly more expensive than standard PCs, the “killer app” that would justify the premium at scale has yet to emerge. Enterprise IT buyers are notoriously cautious with capital spending, and while AI PCs may eventually become the default, the transition timeline depends on whether real-world use cases — such as local language models, real-time data analysis, or AI-assisted productivity tools — become essential rather than experimental.
Memory price volatility adds another layer of uncertainty. AI PCs require higher memory configurations by default, and any sustained increase in DRAM or NAND prices could dampen the appetite for upgrades. HP’s second fiscal half of 2026 (May through October) will serve as an early test of whether corporate buyers are willing to pay more for AI capability in a still-cautious spending environment.
Why 30 Percent Still Matters
Thirty percent of HP’s installed base represents a significant number of devices still running an unsupported operating system. For consumers, the risk is straightforward: no more security patches, no more bug fixes, and increasing vulnerability to exploits. For enterprises, the stakes are higher. Compliance requirements, insurance policies, and customer contracts often mandate supported software, and a Windows 10 machine in a corporate environment is a potential liability.
HP’s argument — that this lag will eventually convert into a wave of upgrades — assumes that the remainder of the installed base will eventually move. But it is equally possible that a portion of these users will remain on Windows 10 until the hardware literally fails, particularly in price-sensitive markets or among small businesses that lack IT budgets for regular refresh cycles. Microsoft’s Extended Security Updates program, while expensive for enterprises, has created a paid path to delay migration even further.
The Fujitsu and Toshiba experiences from earlier Windows transitions offer a cautionary parallel. When enterprises can pay to extend support, many choose to do so, often multiple times, pushing full migration years into the future. HP’s tailwind may arrive, but it could take longer to materialize than the company’s current guidance suggests.
For now, the PC industry finds itself in an unusual position. The end of Windows 10 support was supposed to be the catalyst for one of the largest upgrade cycles in recent history. Instead, seven months in, nearly a third of the market has not moved. Whether that becomes a slow-burning opportunity or a structural headache for HP and its competitors will depend on how long users can afford to wait — and whether the next generation of hardware gives them a compelling reason not to.
