Microsoft fails to turn punters on to WinPho 7

Microsoft and its hardware partners shifted a mere 1.6m Windows Phone 7 handsets during the first three months of 2011.

So says market watcher Gartner, which also noted that a total of just under 101m smartphones shipped worldwide in the same period.

And compare WinPho 7 shipments to 16.9m iPhones, 13m BlackBerrys and 36.3m Android devices.

WinPho 7's "modest" sales were actually beaten by shipments of older Microsoft mobile operating systems. According to Gartner, a Microsoft OS was installed in 3.7m smartphones in Q1 2011 - 2.1m more than the researcher's WinPho 7 total, given separately.

HP's WebOS and Linux together accounted for the best part of 3.4m smartphones.

Back in April, Gartner forecast that Microsoft will take 19.5 per cent of the smartphone market come 2015, the majority of that share being accounted for by WinPho. This time the researcher was more cautious in its outlook, simply saying that: "In the long term, Nokia's support will accelerate Windows Phone's momentum." ®