Windows Phone 8 hasn't slowed Microsoft's mobile freefall
Four months after its formal launch, not only has Windows Phone 8 failed to win Microsoft a bigger piece of the mobile pie, but Redmond's share of US smartphone subscribers is actually still shrinking, according to the latest figures from analytics firm comScore. You may recall that last November CEO Steve Ballmer was crowing …
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Re: Good... Good...
All by itself? Now *that's* a smart phone.
Did I miss the big Microsoft advertising blitz?
I don't remember seeing a single Windows Phone 8 advert on TV since they launched. I've seen articles on various tech sites like this one but no actual ads on TV. Two big things are working against Microsoft more than anything else right now from my point of view.
1. Abandoning Windows Phone 7.x for the bad idea it was. Yes it may get updates still but it will never go beyond 7.x if they have any say in it.
2. Some awful basic apps. The music player is atrocious and that's being kind to it. There is no ability to create a playlist then add songs to it. You have to add songs to a Now Playing list *then* save it as a playlist. You can't edit that playlist to add or remove songs either so if you made a mistake you start over. I also haven't figured out how to clear the Now Playing list... there are no alternatives on the Marketplace.
The lack of quality apps is still a huge issue as is their seemingly uncaring attitude to the whole system. The hardware is fantastic, especially the HTC 8X but what's the point of having a great phone if you hate using it? There's an almost indifferent attitude to development too with app submissions either being ignored for weeks or just not being dealt with. If they are to have any hope of getting / staying 3rd they need to sort out a lot of basic issues. The ones I've listed are the biggest that I can see having used it.
Re: Did I miss the big Microsoft advertising blitz?
What any prime time US show and you will see the main characters pull out a windows phone. Microsoft have gone for product placement in nearly every show.
PS. I have no idea if they also advertising as I never watch the adverts.
Re: Did I miss the big Microsoft advertising blitz?
Microsoft have gone for product placement in nearly every show
Figures - with actors it doesn't actually have to *work*..
Re: Did I miss the big Microsoft advertising blitz?
Plus the shameless promotion of it on the gadget show. Suddenly they love WinPho more than apple/ios it seems - nothing to do with their sponsorship I'm sure!
I guess microsoft advertising WinPho 8 would be tricky now with several manufacturers using it. I guess they'd have to show nokias but surely the other manufacturers would take that as favouritism?
Re: Did I miss the big Microsoft advertising blitz?
While out shopping a month ago, I dropped into the AT&T wireless store. They had alot of WP8 phones there, and were pushing them rather hard. I assume that the big push is due to AT&T getting some cash from Microsoft.
Re: Did I miss the big Microsoft advertising blitz?
I don't about MS, but practically *every single US show* (at least, those that also air over here) in the last five or more years has Apple product placement in it. The only exceptions being those where it doesn't make sense (e.g., sci-fi, fantasy, historical). (Thankfully those are my favourite genres...)
The MAGIC rotting MOBILE CORPSE of Microsoft
The fall of Microsoft sounds less than that of blackberry in the table of figures but it's WORSE!
MS and Blackberry both lost 20% of their subscribers IN A QUARTER!!!! Yes, thats ONE QUARTER!
But the article does not make this following point clear enough.
Blackberry are suffering a lull due to people waiting for the next model, much like lulls between iPhone x and iPhone x+1
Whereas the opposite is true of Win Pho 8 - it has been launched within the quarter so that *should* have boosted subscriber share (as it does for iPhone x+1 during its release quarter - oft with queues around blocks)
So these figures are much worse than the article implies.
Also interesting is that this means that Win Pho 8 is obviously not selling. Why? People that bought WinPho 7 phones have been warning their mates how crap it is - negative word of mouth, despite all the astroturfing by MS and the PR companies hired by MS.
WIN PHONE FAIL!
Re: The MAGIC rotting MOBILE CORPSE of Microsoft
Blackberry will grow by a few percent - that's obvious once the new models arrive in volume. Ordinarily, that wouldn't bother the other players but what's this? Microsoft only have few percent to start with, and as these charts constantly show that's heading South by the quarter. Android isn't going to stop growing. The only sizeable sector left to go for is increasingly dissatisfied iPhone users who don't jump to Android - and up to now, even this tiny minority has only had WP8 to look at.
Not any more :-)
Re: The MAGIC rotting MOBILE CORPSE of Microsoft
Since the figures in the graph are for relative share only, it's possible that both Blackberry and Microsoft kept the same number of subscribers but the market expanded by a percentage point or so.
I don't suppose other parts of the world are much different in relative uptake of Windows Phone but may be a more rapidly expanding market - are there any figures for that?
Re: The MAGIC rotting MOBILE CORPSE of Microsoft
At launch there were few WP8 phones available that weren't on some exclusivity deal. There were few budget models.
Nokia is launching two cheaper handsets as are other brands.
WP8 has been out for how long? about three months and the time after xmas is always slow.
Re: The MAGIC rotting MOBILE CORPSE of Microsoft
Yeah see, i don't really believe that. I currently own a Lumia 900 and am waiting to be upgraded to 7.8. It has served me very well up till now. A friend of mine has a 920 and is very possitive about that as well.
Aside from that, i've also heard very little negative comments about winphones amongst my peers, so those hordes of people telling their mates how crap winphone is, are probably just you and your mates.
But fair enough, stats suggest they're not doing very well and there has to be a reason for that. I have a hard time believing it's because winphone 7/8 are crap though.
Re: The MAGIC rotting MOBILE CORPSE of Microsoft
With your great logical mind, would you mind telling why in the world someone must not have waited for Windows Phone 8 to be released than buying Windows Phone 7?
Not to mention, Windows Phone 8 OS is released by October end and "few" operators started sending the users by late November. Why not those guys wait for their provider(eg Sprint) to provide them?
Honestly, you hate MS or WP* and so you found a way to make them look fail more.
Burning platforms
The last 2 lines of the table must hurt at Nokia HQ: The old "burning platform" still keeping afloat better than the new one. Ouch!
But..
... Nokia adverts here in the UK state that they have sold MILLIONS of their new phones. Now when you say MILLIONS you really mean serious numbers ..
So are they lying?
Re: But..
Nokia may have sold millions of phones... but ComScore are counting subscription, i.e. phones in the hands of end-users. Not sure if that includes pre-paid, but anyway few flagship phones are going to be sold on PAYG.
The difference between Nokia and ComScore figures are the phones sitting in shops and networks' warehouses, waiting for someone to want them.
Re: But..
"So are they lying?"
Most people would accept that they have sold "millions" if they've sold 2 million or more. But in marketingspeak, 1,000,001 still counts for the plural.
But even if they'd sold 2 million, how does that compare to Apple and Samsung in the same period?
Re: But..
"...but anyway few flagship phones are going to be sold on PAYG."
Wrong. I guess you just don't get out very much.
This is US only, not at all representative of worldwide (also means that Apple aren't #1)
This is US only, whilst WP8 still grows overall. That's why the figures don't match up, either with the Nokia adverts, or what MS have said (as reported in the article). The only lie is the Register spinning US-only facts as if it was representative of the worldwide market.
Similarly with Android vs IOS or Samsung vs Apple. Worldwide, Samsung are first (and Nokia second), way ahead of Apple. And in the US, last quarter IOS went up with Android falling, but that was only in the US - worldwide Android continues to dominate.
I don't care for WP, but I dislike articles trying to mislead people just to push an agenda - it seems that not one single other commenter noticed that these figures are for the US only.
The only valid point worth reporting is that Nokia still haven't broken into the US market, despite them hoping to with WP. But that isn't a fall - Symbian never made it in the US either. In general, the US has never been representative of worldwide usage. I mean, in 2007 they thought Apple's dumb phone was something amazingly new because the US was years behind in phone tech, whilst everyone else had had apps and Internet years before even on feature phones, not to mention the US not having seen smartphones before. And whilst Android has caught on since then, it's still not dominating in the way that it has outside the US.
Re: This is US only, not at all representative of worldwide (also means that Apple aren't #1)
Downvoted because Nokia's WP play was sold as "we've got to crack the USA" - not with WP, you won't!
Re: This is US only, not at all representative of worldwide (also means that Apple aren't #1)
I agree with most of your comment which is almost entirely valid, but one Nokia trick you have missed is that Nokia just re-designated their very cheap Asha feature phone as a smart phone. Gartner, IDC etc have never considered the Asha a smart phone and still don't, but Nokia are suddenly now saying it is.
So the number of Nokia smartphones miraculously rockets, and it is easy for people then to make the false assumption that Windows Phone is the cause of the rocketing sales.
Re: This is US only, not at all representative of worldwide (also means that Apple aren't #1)
Asha is a smartphone - how is it not? The weird thing is why manufacturers continue with the odd "feature" label (no, it might not be as good as a high end smartphone, but neither is a cheap Android, or still-on-sale older iphone - it's like saying a £300 laptop isn't a laptop, as it isn't as good as my £1500 one).
3rd party industry observers have included Asha (I forget which off hand, but this was why Nokia started counting it as a smartphone). Unlike Apple, who declared their dumb phone a smartphone, even when it couldn't run apps (something that feature phones did years earlier).
Yes, it's a fair point to note that their recent growth has come much more from Asha than WP (although the latter still grows), but I'm not sure why people try to redefine Asha as not being a smartphone. Indeed, surely it's more damning of WP, if most of their smartphone growth is from another platform? (Also I wouldn't say it is either rocketing, or mysterious - up until recently, their smartphone sales were much higher - they went down as Symbian was phased out, now they're going up as they introduce new smartphone platforms.)
Re: This is US only, not at all representative of worldwide (also means that Apple aren't #1)
Yes, I covered that in my post - it's fair game to note that Nokia/WP still haven't cracked the US market ("Nokia still haven't broken into the US market, despite them hoping to with WP"). And yes, if their reasoning for ditching Symbian was to crack the US market, it's also a bad move. But we have an article conflating US sales with the worldwide market, and many comments doing the same.
What about.....
...the prices?
Windows phones are pitched at Apple price levels.
So why bother? Even Google nexus 4 are between £240 and £280. So who in their right minds would want to shell out Apple and Samsung flagship levels for the buggy handsets?
Just wondering.
Re: What about.....
"So who in their right minds would want to shell out Apple and Samsung flagship levels for the buggy handsets?"
Seems to have worked for Apple's buggy handsets all these years...
Nokia Ended a near 15 year unbroken addiction to their handsets when they announced the ditching of symbian just as I was about to jump in. Glad I waited. I moved to a mix of Linux and Mac to avoid further exposure to windows - why would I add to the frustration on my phone?
My phone is separate from my other devices, I don't want a pc in my hand, it has a different set of uses often due to the pricing and performance of UK networks. My Samsung does all I want and is a Redmond free phone.
Are you sure that strangely surnamed individual isnt Mr Ratner in Disguise?
Fail Because they drove away a whole household of Nokia Fans.
Can't recommend Windows Phone even though I liked mine.
I have got some Windows Phone 7 devices, but I can't recommend that anyone get into Windows Phone. You are likely to get a phone that doesn't support the latest OS. Nokia Lumia 900 is still a commonly available phone, but it's not even upgraded to version 7.8 yet! Who wants yesterday's technology today? Not me, and not any of my friends. Sorry, Microsoft, we don't like your terrible upgrade policies.
Re: Can't recommend Windows Phone even though I liked mine.
You've more or less voiced my feelings - I've got 5 months left on my contract, and I've got me a nice new Gmail account. Android certainly doesn't avoid the lack of updates though, unless you have a reference phone - I know a lot of people stuck on very old versions - older than Win7.5 - on their devices because their device maker/operator hasn't made the update available, and they're not technically literate or confident enough to mod it themselves.
Re: Can't recommend Windows Phone even though I liked mine.
Android updates are terrible too
Re: Can't recommend Windows Phone even though I liked mine.
"Android updates are terrible too"
Fandroids conveniently "forget" this fact
Microsoft Bob
Microsoft's problem is that it's been in the mobile game too long, and can't quit now.
If people remembered how hey had a go at cracking he market back in he 90s with WinCE, and then abandoned it, it would be remembered like Microsoft Bob or Windows ME - An embarrassing dud but nohing more than a distant glitch along the way.
But for them to quit now would really look like a mighty defeat, and a real wound to their image. Between that, the popularity of 'alternative' devices such as tablets and STBs, Windows 8 being seen as the bastard offspring of Vista being artificially inseminated by WinME, the decline of IE, flatlined desktop sales and every other dent to their core businesses, Microsoft could well look like a fading corporation accepting its time has passed.
So it has to dogmatically keep plugging away at Windows Mobile in spite of every failure. Balmer may as well be sticking his fingers in his ears and saying "la la la I can't hear you" whilst hoping if MS just keeps its head down, all its problems will go away.
The only two ways out I can see is to wait another ten years until mobile devices pack the same power as a reasonable desktop, and pretend to unify the various OSes when in reality they're just dropping Windows Mobile and running real WinNT on phones. Or, split up into separate companies, offering the desktop OS, mobile, Office, serverware, etc, and then let the mobile division perish whilst avoiding taking the blame.
Re: Microsoft Bob
> Microsoft's problem is that it's been in the mobile game too long, and can't quit now.
No retreat from Stalingrad.
Re: Microsoft Bob
Windows CE + Windows ME + Windows NT = Windows CEMENT, the phones are "bricked" from the start.
But I thought this was a news site, this is not news........
Re: Microsoft Bob
@AC09:06: "The only two ways out I can see is to wait another ten years until mobile devices pack the same power as a reasonable desktop, and pretend to unify the various OSes when in reality they're just dropping Windows Mobile and running real WinNT on phones. "
Um, They've already dropped Windows Mobile and are running real WinNT on phones. No need to wait ten years at all.
What if the current Android manufacturers offered a choie on Linux Phones?
Would it not be possible to offer the same handset with Android, Tizen, Ubuntu, Sailfish or Firefox? Ideally with easy reflash if you don't like the one you are using.
Re: What if the current Android manufacturers offered a choie on Linux Phones?
And who would provide the support?
Re: What if the current Android manufacturers offered a choie on Linux Phones?
What support? Seriously what support do you get with your phone. If you are lucky you might get firmware updates for a while.
If they wanted to support, they would have chosen to go for common hardware platforms so you can use common operating system images, just like it's done on the PC.
Re: What if the current Android manufacturers offered a choie on Linux Phones?
No one in the tech world throws money at anything these days unless there is support (read as responsibility) for it. Thats been open source/linux's main problem all along.
The risk assessment/share holders do not want the risk of investing in/buying something that you can pin someone down over if needed - be it security hole or whatever.
So even if in your eyes you do not get "support", you do get someone you could take to court if needed.
No phone manufacturer is going to offer the option of various OS's because they're leaving themselves too open on the risk front.
Mot surprising
I have been sent a developer device by Nokia. Lumia 820 and I lasted less than 48 hours with it.
I'm gonna buy a Nokia WinPho8 device on Three's 4G network later this year. I'm bored of Android. I don't personalise it enough to give a damn. I only use a handful of apps. My experience of it on multiple devices is meh.
Bored
I too am bored to death with Android and all its issues. It is telling that just about every app in Play has a series of reviews telling you that it works on X, but not on Y. I don't like all the ads and the poor carrier updates and the locked down OS that requires a root to remove carrier apps. I can't help wondering how many others will be looking for alternatives when their contracts expire.
Re: @CR
Good grief, they've got the shill-bot working well - this one logs into multiple accounts and replies to its own posts.
Agreed, I'v a growing meh feeling towards android and especially the hardware vendors are offering android on. iOS just looks too dated now and still has the apple premium
Overall for me hardware wins the day. I want a phone that will be 100% dependable as a phone (really really fed up of android's lock screen being unresponsive when I get an important call!), and I want it to have a great camera which no other manufacturer seems to come close on for contrast/colour accuracy and low light ability. So its gotta be a nokia going forward I think.
Re: @CR
And it auto-downvotes too. Awesome! Is there an XAML version?
Re: @CR
Class, an AC bot that thinks its adding to the conversation.
How quaint.
Is hell exothermic or endothermic?
All this emphasis on market share puts me in mind of that age old story about the above exam question (found here for those who may not have read it).
How much of a change in market share is attributable to actual changes in unit sales of the phone/system in question, and how much is due to changes in total units sold of all phones/system in the market?
It is entirely possible that at this point in their lifecycle (approximately 2 years from launch) Windows Phones are selling more units that either Android or iPhone did at the same points in their lifecycle - equally, it is possible that they are not.
What is certain is that at the two year mark of each of these systems' lifecycle, the market has been radically different, so I find that market share a very fuzzy measurement. Unless the market is new, it takes time to break into a market - Android took a good four years to hit its stride.
So I would be very interested in knowing the unit sales for each system since launch and comparing on a year-by-year-since-launch basis.
But the likelihood of getting accurate figures for Windows Phone sales? I think that Tim Graham has a better chance of bedding Theresa Manyan.
Re: Is hell exothermic or endothermic?
Indeed - and people forget just how poorly iphone sold in its early years, only really getting mainstream 2010-2011.
(Plus remember, these stats are US only, so completely useless for info on worldwide share or sales.)
I don't think I've seen total WP for Q4 2012 - for Nokia alone it was 4.something million.
(I agree about the problems of "market share" - for years the media moaned about Nokia's "falling share", but actually their Symbian sales were not only increasing, but doing so at a faster rate - in absolute numbers - than iphone. But the media spun it so Apple were top, Nokia last. Funnily enough, now that Apple are in exactly the same situation with their ipads - falling share, but increasing sales - the media seem less keen to use this tactic...)
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