Posted on 05/19/2011 2:44:34 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Microsoft has made little headway in reclaiming its lost smartphone market share in the six months since the debut of Windows Phone 7. According to Gartner's latest numbers, Microsoft sold only 1.6 million Windows Phone 7 devices during the first quarter of the year, leaving it just ahead of HP's anemic webOS numbers (categorized by Gartner as "other"), but behind every other major platform.
Microsoft has fumbled through the early months of 2011 with Windows Phone 7, which has seen delayed system updates, software glitches, and problems arising from the long-delayed updates. Microsoft is prepared to make a major WP7-based announcement on Tuesday, May 24, that will hopefully set it in a more positive direction.
Gartner believes that Microsoft's new partnership with Nokia will go a long way toward boosting WP7's market share in the quarters to come. It thinks Microsoft's "ecosystem" approach--creating the platform, handsets, applications, developer relations, etc.--is the right direction for the company to take.
"Every time a user downloads a native app to their smartphone or puts their data into a platform's cloud service, they are committing to a particular ecosystem and reducing the chances of switching to a new platform. This is a clear advantage for the current stronger ecosystem owners Apple and Google," Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner, wrote in a report. "As well as putting their devices in the context of a broader ecosystem, manufacturers must start to see their smartphones as part of a computing continuum."
Microsoft has done well to foster an ecosystem around Windows Phone 7. Its app store has more than 16,000 applications, and its WP7 devices integrate well with both business and consumer email, browsing, and productivity uses.
Nokia, Microsoft's new partner, sold a whopping 107.6 million handsets during the first quarter, which represents a 5.5% drop compared to the year-ago quarter. Nokia's Symbian platform held onto the number two spot in smartphone rankings globally, with 27.6 million smartphones shipped and 27.4% of the market. Symbian's hold on the smartphone market has dropped precipitously as consumers move to newer platforms such as Android and Apple's iOS. It will fall further as it shifts to Microsoft's WP7 platform.
"This will precipitate a competitors' rush to capture Symbian's market share in the midtier," Cozza said.
One interesting trend spotted by Gartner concerns mid-tier smartphones. A number of manufacturers, including HTC, LG, Motorola, and Samsung, have flooded the market with inexpensive smartphones (mostly based on Android), and this has shifted the smartphone users down market for the first time.
Smartphones in total took 23.6% of all phone sales globally during the first quarter, a huge 85% increase over the previous year. "This share could have been even higher, but manufacturers announced a number of high-profile devices during the first quarter of 2011 that would not ship until the second quarter of 2011," said Cozza. "We believe some consumers delayed their purchases to wait for these models."
Cozza is speaking mainly about the first wave of Long Term Evolution smartphones announced by HTC, LG, Motorola, and Samsung at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. The four 4G smartphones shown there by Verizon Wireless--its first 4G smartphones--surely caused many would-be smartphone buyers to wait until they are available.
The first of these handsets, the Droid Thunderbolt, only reached the market in mid March, so its impact on first quarter numbers was minimal. The Samsung Droid Charge will hit the street on May 26
Microsoft made some big errors during it’s earlier smartphone, which cost it a lot of trust from the consumer, but, in the end, it should be able to make up for lost time.
Do you suppose that may be why they are buying Nokia?
Didn’t they just buy Skype as well?
Microsoft is not buying Nokia. They’re partnering with Nokia, to get Nokia to use Windows Phone 7 as the OS.
I’ve got a BB Storm 2. Contract’s up in June, sooooo - I’m thinking Droid X. the Missus just got a Samsung Continuum, and she likes it a lot.
Now if they can come up with a droid battery that lasts more than a few hours, they may actually have something.
Amen to that.
RE: Do you suppose that may be why they are buying Nokia?
Yes it is. Nokia is going to shelve their Phone OS in favor of Windows. The purchase of Skype is also part of the scheme. Their is method to their madness.
Whether this madness will succeed is going to be interesting to watch.
Somehow, I think the next few years will either see Microsoft dominant once again or just a shell of their former self.
RE: Do you suppose that may be why they are buying Nokia?
Yes it is. Nokia is going to shelve their Phone OS in favor of Windows. The purchase of Skype is also part of the scheme. There is method to their madness.
Whether this madness will succeed is going to be interesting to watch.
Somehow, I think the next few years will either see Microsoft dominant once again or just a shell of their former self.
RE: Didn’t they just buy Skype as well?
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Microsoft’s purchase of both Nokia and Skype is part of a plan to dominate.
Nokia is going to shelve their smartphone OS, Symbian in favor of Windows. The purchase of Skype is also part of the scheme. There is method to their madness.
Whether this madness will succeed is going to be interesting to watch. Skype supports various operating systems (Windows being just one of them). Will Microsoft continue to support the other operating systems, or slowly abandon them to concentrate on Windows? Who knows what their plans are...
Somehow, I think the next few years will either see Microsoft dominant once again or just a shell of their former self.
Everything Microsoft has ever made has been a copycat bag of suck.
I think it will destroy three great brands instead of just one.
I hope you mean Droid X2, which is currently being released. I have the original Droid X and it’s an awesome phone, but if I were you I would wait a little while until there are more LTE phones out there (unless LTE is not a concern to you). If you don’t care about LTE, the qHD screen and dual-core chip in the Droid X2 look appealing.
HTC is notoriously terrible at batteries (see: Droid Incredible, Evo). Try the Motorola offerings, like the Droid X, which has a battery that lasts as long as any other smartphone out there.
Ah - that’s the input I’m looking for. Wasn’t sure when the dual core tecra procs were going to come out. Who’s going to offer them first? Samsung? Moto?
Well, like I said, the Droid X2 (currently being sold) has a dual-core Tegra 2. It looks like a great phone, except it’s missing two components I really think it should have: front facing camera and LTE. It also didn’t ship with Gingerbread, though it’s supposed to be getting it within weeks (along with the original Droid X).
If LTE and a front-facing camera don’t matter to you, the Droid X2 is about the most advanced Android phone out there.
This neck of the woods isn’t likely to see LTE for a good long while, I think. In another two years - and if we still have a civilization - I’ll probably take the next bump up. We’ll see Tegra quad cores by then.
Windows Phone 7 is a great OS - I really like my Windows phone. I think part of the problem is the limited number of handsets that are available, and the fact that none of them are really “sexy” from a smart phone perspective. If there was some really hot, pretty hardware available, I’m sure they’d sell more phones.
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