MS smartphone share falls despite WinPho 7
Android takes top spot from RIM
The arrival of Windows Phone 7 has not reversed Microsoft's declining smartphone market share in the US.
Microsoft had eight per cent of the US smartphone market in the three months through January - a drop of 1.7 per centage points, according to comScore.
Google's Android took the number-one spot for the first time, growing 7.7 percentage points to 31.2 per cent, while Research in Motion (RIM) fell 5.4 percentage points to 30.4 per cent.
Windows Phone 7 was launched by Microsoft in October, but handsets loaded with the mobile operating system went on sale in the US in November, making comScore's stats the first to cover sales of the platform.
Microsoft has not provided its own sales numbers for Windows Phone 7.
Significantly for a mobile operating system getting a big consumer focus from Microsoft, comScore's numbers also cover the Christmas shopping season. The numbers indicate that Windows Phone 7 was not a big hit among the phone-buying public, but Microsoft can argue that a relatively small number of handsets were available in the period compared to the competition. The company is working with only five phone makers, and those makers are putting a limited number of handsets out there.
Just HTC, Samsung, LG, Asus, and Dell have been allowed to ship Windows Phone 7 handsets. That said, Samsung and LG were the number one and number two smartphone providers during the three months to January 2011, according to comScore, with 24 per cent and 20 per cent of mobile subscribers using their handsets - relatively unchanged.
But both Samsung and LG have been getting Android-happy on phones and slates.
It's likely Windows Phone 7 had the odds stacked against it, given that the Microsoft rot has been in full effect for at least two years. Windows Phone 7 started with zero per cent market share, when you consider it's a completely new development and runtime platform compared to the version of Windows for mobile it supersedes. ®
COMMENTS
Maybe people just don't like it
Maybe WinPho7 isn't successful because it has few redeeming features. No apps that Android & Apple give you. A completely boring UI you can't change except choosing colours and a chunk of your home screen is lost to an empty bar down the side just to hold a button which you don't need because you can slide across without it. A completely grey mail experience. No flash. No plugins. It can't stream video. You have to hand over your machine to Zune to get ANY content on the device. Which can be useful - recoding of video during upload is cool but the video player is horrible. There's a slider showing progress that doesn't let you slide. I can't get mine to turn off and charge at the same time. It just powers back on. I have to use airplane mode at night. The phone dialer is beyond basic with almost zero address book integration and when I search my address book from the dialer, I get all my facebook contacts who don't have phone numbers. There are no background apps except email so no facebook or twitter alerts or weather updates. You can't send an address book entry via sms/mms/email or anything else and there's no cut-n-paste so the best way is to read it to somebody. How 1980's.
And, if you power it on and then wait too long or do something like hit the windows button before entering your SIM PIN, you're lost. It shows a "pin required" icon that you can't click on. The phone dialer says pin required but there is no button, no menu item, nothing you can do to get the Enter PIN screen back. Either power cycle or get into the settings and go into airplane mode and then out again [BTW if you know a better way, I'd LOVE to know].
Mine's a work phone so I didn't pay for it but I'm considering going back to my HD2 with 6.5 which could actually do things and had heaps of apps available (although nowhere near Android or iOS)
MS chose to go down a new path. It could mimic Android and be fully open or go the iOS closed ecosystem way. It chose the latter. But while iOS has a huge biodiversity in its ecosystem created by an army of fan(boi)s supplying useful and/or fun apps so you don't really care that you have no control, the WinPho7 ecosystem is like being locked all alone in a biodome with a cactus.
Which is a shame, because much of the design of the system has so much promise. Even the simplicity of the interface has many positives.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
You said 'Microsoft', 'Smart' and 'Phone all in the same sentence!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Maybe
On the other hand, other platforms did have buyers despite those 24 month contracts
Windows mobile 6.1 user
When Microsoft introduced Windows 7 for PCs, it came with XP Mode. For users who had software that ran only on XP, and wanted to make the jump to Windows 7, XP Mode was sort of a life vest. Being a Windows Mobile 6.1 user, I was excited to hear that Microsoft was releasing Windows Phone 7. But that excitement was short lived. I quickly found out that none of my applications that ran on 6.1 would run on Windows Phone 7. Some of those applications were very expensive, and the authors of my applications are not offering free uprades for Windows Phone 7 users. Hard to believe that Microsoft didn't see this coming, after all, they did provide XP Mode for Windows 7. It's no surprise to me that Microsoft has lost market share with their new mobile OS. They pratically gave their loyal fan base the finger by creating an OS that was not compatible with existing applications.
T-Shirts
Like Martin from the Simpsons, I'd only wear a WANG t-shirt.
