Windows Phone Market Share Drops Below 1 Percent to 0.7 %

Latest data from Gartner shows that close to 2.4 million Windows Phone handsets were sold in the recent quarter, accounting for 0.7 percent share in the market. That’s quite a decline from the same quarter last year when Windows Phone had a 2.5 percent share of the market.

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I think the main reason for Windows Phone dropping to 0.7 % is that there are not as many apps, games, and services which are available on Windows Phone compared to iOS or Google Android.

The Smartphone business is also becoming more competitive with more affordable smartphones being released by non-Windows Phone makers.

Apple released the iPhone SE which cost less than the iPhone 6. There are now a lot of very affordable Google Android smartphones for people to choose from, so more people would rather buy a cheapest Google Android smartphone instead of a Windows Phone which cost about the same or more.

Blackberry and Nokia are also making a comeback by releasing Google Android smartphones like the Blackberry Priv which is a good smartphone for work because it has a keyboard.

I agree, MS may eventually exit the smartphone business, or just use the desktop version of Windows 10 on smartphones when Intel mobile Atom chips, RAM, and graphics become more powerful, and more power efficient.

I think Microsoft will spend more time on releasing more of their Windows apps to Android, and iOS, so people use fewer Google and Apple Apps, and use MS apps like Skype, Bing, MS Office, One Drive, and Outlook.

I read stories of Microsoft investing money in Cyanogenmod Android ROM, so Microsoft maybe planning to use Cyanogenmod to get more mobile users to use MS Apps like Bing, MS office and also use a modified version of Android without as many bundled Android apps like YouTube, Google, Google+, Chrome, Google Docs, and Google Drive.

There are some smartphones which are sold with Cyanogenmod, and other custom Android roms, so if these smartphones become more popular a lot of people would be using MS apps when they buy a Cyanogenmod phone.

lb said:

For a company that rich, they sure as hell have put stupid people in charge over the past years. Windows Phone was a gorgeous OS that could have been a powerful competitor if the mobile division had been handled by people who knew what they were doing.

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Hiring good workers to run the Windows Phone operating system does not always mean success by getting a lot of users. There could be other unrelated reasons like a bad reputation from MS other products which cause Windows Phone to not do wel..

Microsoft products like Windows Vista, Xbox 360 which Overheated a lot in the beginning, Zune MP3 player, Internet Explorer, etc may of damage the reputation of the Windows Phone brand.

I felt Windows reputation was not as good after Windows Vista was released.

Some users may of thought that using Windows Phone was as slow and unreliable like using a Windows Vista computer.

The poor reputation of the original Xbox 360 overheating, and breaking easily causing the "Red Ring of Death" error may of caused a lot of people to not want to buy a Windows Phone because users may of thought that Microsoft products like Windows Phone will break more easily like the original Xbox 360 which had a reputation of breaking after a few months because of overheating problems.

Windows also had a reputation as being a work operating system which may of made fewer people want to use Windows Phone. Many people mostly use their cell phone for talking to friends, gaming, and social networking, and less for work related tasks. Users maybe less likely to buy a Windows Phone which reminded them about work and work tasks like Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and E-mail.

lb said:

I don't really think that Microsoft's reputation is the main factor that led to Windows Phone's downfall. Windows Phone marketshare grew up to 5% at one point, but then it started decreasing because people saw that Microsoft doesn't care about investing in app development. People gave Windows Phone a chance, which proves that the OS was good, but it lacked the leadership to take it in the right direction.

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It was probably easier to gain a higher percentage of smartphone user marketshare back in the past because there was less competition between Smartphone models, so companies did not have to sell as many phones to get more than 1% of the worldwide smartphone users.

In the past, there were only a few popular smartphone makers which were Blackberry, Apple, Samsung, Palm, and Symbian Phone makers.

But, now there are probably hundreds to thousands of smartphone models worldwide if you include less popular brands like RCA and Polaroid, and local smartphone brands like Meizu, Xiaomi, ZTE, and Hauwei which are very popular in their home country of China. There are also a few very popular smartphone makers like Apple, and Samsung, which sells most of the smartphones sold.

I also felt Microsoft was not very successful at convincing cell phone service providers like Sprint, T-mobile and Verizon to advertise Windows Phone smartphones to subscribers, so more users know they have an alternative to iPhone and Google Android.

I think the carriers don't want to deal with returns when uninformed buyers find out that their favorite apps, games, and services are not available on Windows Phone.

I rarely see any stores which advertise Windows Phone. It is either Google Android, and iPhone which is advertised a lot. Most of the Windows Phone models at retail stores are the cheaper models which only has 8GB of storage, and slower CPU which few people want to buy when there are better Android phones like the Motorola E which has better specs, but still sells for an affordable price.