marketshare

Another month, another comScore report.

Like the previous reports that have come out, this one seems to back up the notion that Microsoft has yet to stop their losses in U.S. marketshare for their mobile OSs (comScore seems to lump Windows Mobile and Windows Phone). Gathered from more than 30,000 mobile subscribers via an online survey, the data seems to be at least consistent.

Looking at April, Microsoft's U.S. marketshare is down to 6.7%. To put that in perspective, we've accumulated the last few months of data from comScore and we can see that just over a year ago, MS had 13.2% of the market and it had steadily declined to 10.2% in August and 8.4% in December. In short, Microsoft's marketshare has dropped 25% since Windows Phone 7's launch in October.

Of course with the aging Windows Mobile, we expect many to abandon the platform for alternatives like Android or...well Android (and looking closely, RIM gained as well over 2010-2011). But the problem Microsoft seems to have is converting old Windows Mobile users to Windows Phone. Then again, some of those high-end users may be attracted to Android's more "open" standards and OS manipulation, which resembles Windows Mobile in many ways. The decline though seems to be slowing a bit, but until that number becomes positive growth, Microsoft still has much area to recover.

Luckily that Nokia, Skype and Mango strategy should pay off by late 2011.

Source: comScore; via WinRumors

Here we go again folks, more analyst news! This time it's Gartner's turn with an interesting (and exciting) number of reported sales for WP7 in the first quarter of this year. If this number is true (or somewhat accurate) then this will turn skeptics into believers.

Note that this number doesn't reflect handsets sold to carriers, it shows devices sold to end-users. Interesting to note is that Nokia still head the game with the most market share, but dropping still. A lot is riding on the Nokia + Microsoft partnership, from both parties and these tables display that level of requirement.

Gartner has previously posted predictions of the platform becoming prosperous by 2015. What do you make of these findings?

Source: Gartner

There has been a fantastic, insightful article published at My Nokia Blog today, which summarises how Windows Phone 7 is doing as a platform in the competitive market against the likes of iOS, Android, Symbian etc. We get to look at what countries are currently targeted by Microsoft's marketing campaigns, how a few major languages are supported, estimation of handset sales, marketshare predictions in the US and more.

Microsoft reported it had sold 1.5 million handsets to carriers in mid-December, in late January however they reported a total sale of 2 million units to carriers.
So in about a months time Microsoft managed to sell another 500,000 units to carriers. Why would carriers buy another 500,000 units (a full third of the amount bought a month ago) if the OS was a failure?

Looking at the above quote, I agree. If the OS was a flop, carriers would be extremely cautious - they hate to see any loss, right? We even heard Samsung had to use alternate memory modules to keep up supply with the Focus. Surely the investment would have been made due to the proposed marketshare gain, and at the end of the day this is Microsoft. "OS" is pretty much in their name, so one would assume if anyone could tap into the smartphone marketshare, it would be Microsoft.

The ending conclusion is a fair take on the current state of Windows Phone. It's a new platform and while it's not making a huge impact to competitors, it's certainly not a flop by any means. The post is a must read though, truly recommended.

Source: My Nokia Blog

A lot of talk has been present about Microsoft being in third place overall (market share, apps, developers etc. combined), attempting to catch Apple and Google. A recent survey released by IDC shows a trend for the mobile OS group with developer interest throughout 2010/11 - Microsoft is yet again third.

Although we are ahead of RIM at the last point, we should put away the celebration packs of goodies due to the interest percentage for WP7 falling below what the platform had this time last year. Blackberry suffered a heavier fall and thus WP7 comes out tops, notably due to the Nokia partnership (which will hopefully boost developer interest once they bring handsets to the table).

Also included in the report is a fragmentation chart displaying what developers are most concerned with. Android is a known pray to OS and hardware fragmentation, something which WP7 hasn't had (yet, I've touched wood). The most concern is reportedly skill fragmentation, however. 

So overall, WP7 is still playing the slow catchup and I doubt anything will alter until Nokia devices come into the spotlight, or a good number of contracts end soon and customers wish to go to WP7.

via: WPSauce, CNET

Research group, Chitika, is reporting that Windows Phone 7 has gained enough of the smartphone market to bring it on par with HP's (Palm's) webOS.  Since February, WP7 has risen from 0.44% to 0.5%, putting it in a virtual tie with webOS' estimated 0.53%, down from 0.84% in the same period.  While this may not seem very impressive at first blush, it is significant because newcomer WP7 is now even, and set to overtake, an already established OS.  Windows Phone has been slowly gaining ground since its launch, while webOS has been steadily declining. 

Chitika predicts that WP7 will potentially spike once it makes its way over to Verizon, though its arrival has seen more than its fair share of delays.  Verizon has worked wonders for market leader, Android, as it accounts for more than half of all Android devices out there.  The slow growth of Windows Phone 7 seems to be less about quality, as most devices seem to receive high marks, and more about accessibility.  Once Big Red gets in the game, it could mean some substantial gains for Microsoft.

Source: 1800PocketPC; Via: Chitika

A few months ago, we looked at how Bing was performing above par in comparison to Google, and was growing in marketshare between the months of November and December. We calculated the majority of the increase due to Windows Phone 7 launch with Bing being the used search engine. Now, in the month of March, we can take a quick look back at January and February.

With all the latest innovations and releases on the iOS, Android and Windows Phone 7 platforms, I felt as though we should take a minute to sit back, relax, and watch fanboys go berserk over the above images. The funny part? It's all mostly true in a majority of POVs. To use the table you simply look from above as "How [SYSTEM] is seen by [SYSTEM OWNERS]", there are three biased presentations and six humorous interpretations to ease us all into the start of the weekend.