It seems to be a good quarter for worldwide smartphone sales, which saw a 4% increase year-over-year (YoY). Smartphone sales touched 349 million driven by low-cost smartphones in emerging markets. Sadly, Microsoft wasn’t cashing on the bottom of the pyramid at all.
According to Gartner’s research for global mobile sales data for the first quarter of fiscal 2016 (1QFY16), the mobile OS market is dominated by Android with an 84% market share. The second spot is as usual dominated by Apple’s iOS with 14.8% market share in 1Q. Still on third spot, and barely visible now is Microsoft’s Windows Phone that’s fallen lower than 1% market share.
In the same quarter last year, Microsoft at least managed to hold on to 2.5% market share and some expected it might climb 3-5%. However, that isn’t happening and the sad fate is slowly sinking into Microsoft, and Windows Phone is finally breathing its last. It managed to ship nearly 2.4 million units compared to 8.2 million units in 1QFY15.
Microsoft made a bold move when it went ahead and acquired Nokia’s struggling phone division. And with Windows 10 release in tow, it hoped to revive Windows Phone and make it a strong third contender for the competition. It still sits in the third spot but has now become irrelevant for its rivals. Microsoft accepted that the Nokia acquisition was a mistake and announced that it plans to sell off its feature phone business for $350 million to a Foxconn subsidiary.
The said subsidiary is HMD Global, the very same with whom Nokia is already in partnership to create a new generation of smartphones and tablets. The feature phones will, of course, utilize Nokia’s branding and what better way could be for Microsoft to get the brand from its roster. This could also very well mean that we might not see the Lumia-branded Windows 10 phones from Microsoft anymore or even no Lumia phones at all.
Rumors about a Surface Phone are quite rife and if such is the case then Microsoft might not have finally given up on the phone division. However, declining sales of Windows Phone that contributed to a huge drop in Microsoft’s revenue might have the company thinking otherwise. Even if Microsoft manages to introduce a killer device, it would take a miracle on the company’s part to help Windows Phone OS’ market share. BlackBerry seems to accept its fate and is finally embracing Android, it’s now time for Microsoft to get out of the smartphone market altogether or stick to hardware and leave the OS to Android.
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