Smartphone sales numbers likely to show modest beginnings for Microsoft mobile OS
I’ll be checking my e-mail inbox frequently Monday morning for the expected release of smartphone sales for the fourth quarter of 2010 from the research firm IDC. It will be the first report from IDC gauging sales of phones running Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 operating system, even though the phones only went on sale in the U.S. Nov. 8 so it won’t be a full quarter’s worth. Nonetheless, it’ll be a key independent indicator of how the new OS is selling. And it probably won’t set any Champagne corks a-popping at Microsoft headquarters.
I emphasize “independent” because, for the most part, we’ve been getting vague indications from Microsoft on how WP7 is doing, such as the 2 million handsets Microsoft said were sold by manufacturers to retailers. That doesn’t tell us if those phones were sold to consumers or if retailers’ storerooms are stocked to the ceilings with unsold WP7 devices. The only independent figures to date have come from NPD Group, which reported Monday that WP7 earned just a 2 percent share of the smartphone market, based on unit sales, in the fourth quarter, which is half of the 4 percent of its predecessor Windows Mobile. The shares of the mobile operating systems, in order, were as follows: Google Android, 53 percent; Apple iOS, 19 percent; RIM for BlackBerry, also 19 percent; and Palm’s webOS, tied with WP7 at 2 percent.
Microsoft can take some encouragement from a survey done for the fourth quarter by ChangeWave Research that 5 percent of smartphone shoppers said they’d like their next smartphone to run WP7, up from 1 percent in the third quarter of 2010. But Apple and Android tower over WP7 in this bar graph with 36 and 35 percent support, respectively, in the fourth quarter.
Microsoft is sticking to it’s “this is a long term strategy” message and that may be all well and good. In Microsoft’s defense, WP7 devices are only on sale in the U.S. through AT&T and T-Mobile; Verizon and Sprint are to begin selling them sometime in the first half of 2011. By comparison, Android devices are on sale through all four of the top carriers. And Apple’s iPhone, well, it’s in a class by itself. As you all know, iPhone is going to begin selling on Verizon Feb. 10, ending Apple’s exclusive arrangement with AT&T.
All of this begs the question of how Microsoft is going to gauge the success of WP7. Ten percent share? Twenty percent? By most accounts, Windows Phone 7 is well regarded, receiving positive reviews for its design and operation. It just hasn’t been a runaway success. Unless we see more sales gains through additional carriers and on more handsets, it may be that Microsoft’s only measure of success will be “At least it’s not Kin.”
