Windows Phone Shrinks In Europe, As New iPhones Boost iOS

[techbeck]

Spare a thought for Microsoft, a relative newcomer to the mobile making business, after Redmond completed its $7.2BN+ acquisition of former European mobile making powerhouse Nokia earlier this year. If Microsoft was hoping to see quick marketshare wins in Europe once its hands were fully on the levers of production that has not come to pass.

 

The latest 12-week smartphone sales figures from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, up to this September, indicate that Windows Phone?s already small share of the smartphone market has shrunk in Europe ? dropping 0.3 percentage points in aggregate across the top five markets in Europe (the UK, France, Spain, Italy and Germany).

 

Breaking those markets out individually, only Italy continues to see marketshare gains for Windows Phone, with a 1.5 percentage point rise on the year ago period in that market ? giving Microsoft?s OS a 15.2 per cent share on smartphone sales in the country (where it is second only to Android?s 71.8 per cent).

 

But Italy remains the outlier for Windows Phone. The other four major European economies recorded small declines, with Germany shedding the largest share: a drop of 1.4 percentage points to leave Windows Phone with 7.1 per cent of the smartphone sales market.

 

 

More....

http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/29/kantar-september-2014/

 

[Cute James]

Interesting to see the fall in iOS share in Japan.

 

I wonder what this could be down to?

[simplezz]

Ouch -2.8% for WP in China. Does this mean WP is going to dip below 2% worldwide this quarter I wonder.

[simplezz]

Interesting to see the fall in iOS share in Japan.

 

I wonder what this could be down to?

By the look of the numbers, it seems that Android took up the slack. Perhaps Apple is losing popularity?

[bandit_liberty_rumble]

Interesting to see the fall in iOS share in Japan.

 

I wonder what this could be down to?

 

The question is why it was so exceptionally high there before...

[guru]

MS missed the boat. Now Android compatibility is the only option I see that might save the situation

[techbeck]

MS missed the boat.

 

Pretty much .  Instead of laughing at the iPhone, Ballmer should have been smarter.  Right now, WP is a big fail and hard to get people to support the platform when it keeps dropping market share.  Their negative/bashing marketing seems to not be working either.

[Obry]

Yeah I was very excited about WP at first but at this point I've settled on iOS and won't be looking in that direction for the foreseeable future for smart phones. They really did miss the boat and their marketing makes them look even more stupid. I understand what they mean by "mobile first" but can't help but think smart phones and failure...

[spenser.d]

Meh. I'm enjoying it, and will continue to do so as long as they're around :yes:

Edit: Also, didn't they sell more Lumias this quarter than last, and last year? Thought that was in their earnings call. It's not all doom and gloom.

[tsupersonic]

That's unfortunate, even after all the positive numbers we saw from MS recently...I have mixed feelings, on one hand, I want to support WP. I've been saying it has so much potential since the WP7 days, but that potential still hasn't gone anywhere even after 3+ years. They still don't have features I want, nor do they have the apps that I want. The ecosystem is also a mixed bag, and the integration leaves more to be desired. Meanwhile in those 3+ years, Android has exploded in terms of growth - features, apps, and ecosystem. iOS has gotten much better, tightly integrating with the Apple ecosystem. 

[simplezz]

I wonder how the rebranding is going to affect sales in Europe in the long term. After all, most of the people there were buying Lumias because of loyalty to Nokia.

[Cute James]

The question is why it was so exceptionally high there before...

In order to counter the dominance of feature phones, I believe Apple subsidised the iPhone in Japan, allowing domestic carriers to offer the device at very competitive (i.e. low) prices.

[123456789A]

I want to support WP but Microsoft isn't making it easy. I guess I will have to wait for the Ubuntu phone.

[Guest]

I want to support WP but Microsoft isn't making it easy. I guess I will have to wait for the Ubuntu phone.

 

That will be a major success, for sure.

[FiB3R]

Such a shame, they deserve to be doing much better by now.

 

It's been a long time since I've been able to say this, but I literally love the #### out of my phone, though it still has it's flaws.

[techbeck]

Here is why WP isnt where it could have been....