Microsoft's Windows 10 has not helped the company to become the top operating system in the world, and last year it fell to third place behind Apple's combined iOS for iPhones and iPads, and OS X for Macs; as well as Android, based on a new report. The Bill Gates co-founded company has lost OS market share since 2013 and will not start recovering losses until next year.    

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IT research company Gartner made the forecasts about the OS market on April 1, Friday. The new figures stress the importance of Microsoft pivoting to cross-platform business opportunities.

Microsoft recently made digital assistant "bots" including chat boxes as the company's focus at its Build developer conference. The OS giant hopes to create them not only for Windows but also iOS and Android devices.  

Gartner reports that about 283 million mobile devices shipped last year will run Windows Mobile, according to Computerworld. That is a 3.4 percent year-over-year drop.

Meanwhile, the Windows-powered smartphones and tablets make up 11.7 percent of the 2.4 billion total devices shipped in 2015. Four out of five of the devices are smartphones and most of them run Google's Android.    

Gartner had forecasted half a year ago that Windows would be in second place in 2016 by running on 12.9 percent of all mobile devices. However, it is common for the research company to down-size its projected number of Windows and total devices shipped.  

The biggest portion of the downsizing was linked to smartphones that for the first time will dip to single digits.

Gartner analyst Ranjit Atwal explains that in the past slower economic growth had a small effect on smartphone sales, but that situation has changed. Smartphone sales will probably level out during 2016 in China (0.7 percent) and North America (0.4 percent).   

In related news only one smartphone running Windows 10 Mobile was included during the first day of this year's Build developer conference, according to The Verge. Windows chief Terry Myerson admitted that Windows Phone will be unable to attract a lot of smartphone customers. The company seems to be focusing on its Xbox console and HoloLens augmented reality (AR) headset.

Here's a recap of Build 2016 (Day 1):