HispanicBusiness

Microsoft has sold 40 million licences for its new Windows 8 operating system in its first month on the market, the software company said Tuesday.

Tami Reller, recently installed finance and marketing chief for Windows, made the comments at an investor conference in Scottsdale, Arizona, which was webcast on Microsoft's website.

She said that the pace of customer adoption of Windows 8 was faster than what the company had seen when Windows 7 hit the market in 2009, in what was hailed at the time as a record-setting debut.

Reller's figures came as something of a surprise because Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer reported lower than expected sales of Windows 8 in its first four days on the market, when 4 million upgrades were sold.

Windows 8 is regarded as a vital release for Microsoft, which has long dominated the market for computer operating systems but failed to prepare for the shift from PCs to tablets and mobile devices, where Apple and Google are by far the biggest players.