Windows Phone keeps dying a slow death, now below 1 percent market share

Scorpus

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Microsoft's mobile platform continues to die a slow death, with the latest report from Gartner revealing that just 2.4 million Windows Phones were sold in the first quarter of 2016, accoundting for a tiny 0.7% of the smartphone sales market.

This is a significant decrease in sales and market share for Windows Phone compared to the same quarter last year. At the start of 2015, Microsoft had just over 8 million in phone sales for the quarter, or 2.5 percent of the market.

In comparison, market juggernaut Android achieved 294 million in smartphone sales during the quarter (84.1% of the market), while Apple managed around 51.6 million iPhone sales (14.8%). Surprisingly, a small percentage of people (0.2%) still buy phones running Blackberry OS, leading to 660,000 in sales.

Microsoft's smartphone sales have suffered primarily due to a complete lack of compelling new releases. The last flagship the company launched was the Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL in October 2015, and there are reportedly no plans for any new flagships until next year. Meanwhile, Microsoft's low-end devices have been largely uninspiring, particularly when compared to the latest budget Android handsets.

In recent months, Microsoft has been focused on bringing their software tools to popular smartphone platforms like iOS and Android. In upcoming updates to Windows 10, Android users will be able to see their notifications on their Windows 10 device, while Microsoft just recently launched a Windows Phone-inspired keyboard for iOS.

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Further proof the "one size fits all platforms" approach that MS has been pushing since W8 doesn't work and never will. Compromises will always have to be made and this seems to have affected the mobile side the most. Also it doesn't help that the app store is rubbish, missing many vital and popular apps that people have come to rely on. I don't think buying nokia helped MS either, If they set out from the start to make a surface phone to go with the release of there surface tablets they might of had more success with a stronger branded phone to match the success of their tablets.
 
Yes, I must agree. Microsoft did well when they pulled everyone together on their over all protocol's back in the late 80's which stopped the interrupts from slamming into each other and caused so many crashes. They are still trying to convince the civilized world that paying them an annual fee for their software is a great concept, despite the fact there are lots of us using software that is many years old. They preach independence & creativity yet they try to make everyone follow the herd. When will they ever learn ........
 
I love windows phone. The only reason I don't use one full time is lack of a few apps that works on both IOS and Androids. I feel there are only 2 possible fixes that can save their platform.

1) Offer programmers, free of charge, to the producers of the top 100 apps from IOS and Android. These programmers will work along side WITH the in-house programmers to simultaneously develop a windows app at the same time as the company makes an IOS and Android app. Repeat: This is done AT NO COST to the app company. Even if this costs MS a paltry 10 million a year, it's WELL worth the cost and over all, the best 10 million a year they could spend. This also isn't a "forever" deal, only long enough until they get the market share to support their platform... I would suggest 5 years.... so $50 million and they are in the mobile game. Not a bad deal since IOS and Android BOTH have spent countless billions upon billions to build up something MS could leech off for a measly $50 million.



OR --->

2) Effective Immediately, pour 100% of time and costs into "baking in" and fully functional seamless invisible emulator. Nothing else should matter at this point for MS. This needs to be their #1 PRIORITY, no exceptions. I would suggest the previous fix since (working with the $50 mil scenario) it would be A LOT better off NOT using an emulator and the headaches that could come with it.

In the end.. no apps, no platform. It simply is the only thing that matters at this point. MS makes awesome phones. Imagine their line up with all the apps and their price point? Why would anyone buy Android or IOS when windows phones "could" offer the same thing but at 1/2 - 1/3 the price? Windows phone COULD rule the world ONLY if they had the apps. I can not stress that enough.
 
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I love windows phone. The only reason I don't use one full time is lack of a few apps that works on both IOS and Androids. I feel there are only 2 possible fixes that can save their platform.

1) Offer programmers, free of charge, to the producers of the top 100 apps from IOS and Android. These programmers will work along side WITH the in-house programmers to simultaneously develop a windows app at the same time as the company makes an IOS and Android app. Repeat: This is done AT NO COST to the app company. Even if this costs MS a paltry 10 million a year, it's WELL worth the cost and over all, the best 10 million a year they could spend. This also isn't a "forever" deal, only long enough until they get the market share to support their platform... I would suggest 5 years.... so $50 million and they are in the mobile game. Not a bad deal since IOS and Android BOTH have spent countless billions upon billions to build up something MS could leech off for a measly $50 million.



OR --->

2) Effective Immediately, pour 100% of time and costs into "baking in" and fully functional seamless invisible emulator. Nothing else should matter at this point for MS. This needs to be their #1 PRIORITY, no exceptions. I would suggest the previous fix since (working with the $50 mil scenario) it would be A LOT better off NOT using an emulator and the headaches that could come with it.

In the end.. no apps, no platform. It simply is the only thing that matters at this point. MS makes awesome phones. Imagine their line up with all the apps and their price point? Why would anyone buy Android or IOS when windows phones "could" offer the same thing but at 1/2 - 1/3 the price? Windows phone COULD rule the world ONLY if they had the apps. I can not stress that enough.
MS wouldnt do that though. They dont seem to care for windows mobile at all, considering they ported all of their mobile apps to iOS and android. There is very little that exists on WP that doesnt on iOS these days.

As for that emulator idea, ask blackberry how that went for them, allowing blackberry OS to run android apps. Or OS/2 when they decided to allow DOS apps to run on its software. It doesnt work out in the long run,and MS knows that.
 
Further proof the "one size fits all platforms" approach that MS has been pushing since W8 doesn't work and never will. Compromises will always have to be made and this seems to have affected the mobile side the most. Also it doesn't help that the app store is rubbish, missing many vital and popular apps that people have come to rely on. I don't think buying nokia helped MS either, If they set out from the start to make a surface phone to go with the release of there surface tablets they might of had more success with a stronger branded phone to match the success of their tablets.

Not really proof at all, this is just the result of....
1) Microsoft rebooting their mobile OS over and over (Windows Mobile 6.x > Windows Phone 7 > Windows Phone 8 > Windows 10 Mobile) --- every reboot has essentially called for developers to rebuild their apps to support the new OS, with the exception of Windows 10 --- but at the cost of not having a UWP app --- so basically, you're better off re-building even in that case.

2) Previous handsets being left out of the major updates (due to issue #1) : No WM6.x devices received WP7, no WP7 devices received WP8, and the most successful WP8 devices did not receive W10M.

3) Android & iOS were first to this era of "smartphone", which leads to most app developers devoting their time and effort where they have the highest chance for a return --- on Android and iOS.

The idea of the same experience across devices is great. It's just that Microsoft isn't in the best position to really push the idea to consumers. People were excited when Continuum for phones was announced...but what good is this feature when it doesn't have the apps people want to use with it? Android & iOS aren't super successful because of the user experience, it's the ecosystem they each offer.
 
I don't own a Lumia but I've used a couple and I kinda liked them. Sure there are no apps but I don't really use many anyway neither did those people. They just cared about consistent performance which I liked. Microsoft managed to screw up something that could've been great. I was thinking about buying one but since it's dying there's no point.
 
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