Windows Phone 7 taking a beating
We’ve already had estimates that Windows Phone 7 handsets got off to a slow start in the United States. Now one British retailer is reporting more embarrassing sales figures for the system.
According to Mobilesplease.co.uk, a cellphone price comparison site, just 3 percent of all smartphones bought through the site at the moment are running Microsoft’s system. Android phones are outselling Windows Phone 7 by a 15:1 ratio, and even one Nokia handset running Symbian is selling three times as many as all the new WP7 handsets put together.
Naturally there are some notes of caution here: the figures are only from one retailer, and only reflect online sales among people who are looking at a wide range of handsets. That said, because it’s a comparison site, the figures do represent the entire market range rather than being a case of one store offering selected handsets.
The site notes that although it wasn’t able to get precise figures, it’s found a similar pattern among retailers with physical stores, both chains and independent stores.
The company believes the main problem facing Microsoft is not only that most of the current Windows Phone 7 handsets are fairly generic and unspectacular, but that in many cases there are close Android equivalents that seem to be more appealing to consumers.
That would certainly back up some of the pre-launch concern about the new Microsoft system: that it offered neither a branding nor technical advantage. People who want an iPhone or a BlackBerry will get an iPhone or a BlackBerry, but beyond that it’s largely a combination of price and appealing handsets. Once you get into that scenario, many buyers either don’t care or don’t know what system the phone runs.
The British figures follow initial U.S. estimates of 40,000 sales on the first day (Nov. 
that Windows Phone 7 handsets went on sale. Meanwhile one blog notes that the number of people using a WP7 handset to access Facebook is just coming up to 120,000. While that site’s claim that “most Windows Phone 7 users use” the Facebook app may be an overstatement, it’s looking increasingly likely that Microsoft hopes of sales in the millions or even tens of millions will be optimistic at best.
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November 30th, 2010
The situation just keeps getting worse and worse for Windows Phone 7, and it is descending into exactly the same fiasco as Microsoft’s previous Kin phones.
When using any of Microsoft’s phone platforms, whether it be Windows Mobile, Kin or Windows Phone 7, the real danger is that these platforms will be cancelled. That’s where it’s headed for all of them.
Windows Phone 7 is the most monumental debacle of them all. It wasted the most money. It had a half-billion dollar marketing budget. But it failed anyway.
Microsoft shareholders must be furious.
December 1st, 2010
Win Phone 7 is a joke. I have Windows 6 mobile and though it gets things done in a delayed way, the use of Java is horrendous. Slow and my applications keep crashing after about a few weeks use. Reload them and wipe the phone. Same stupid problem.
The LG Quantum looks like a Droid rip off and the whole slider premise is old and stupid to begin with. I don’t even understand why Motorola and Google insist on it being on every other Android phone model to begin with. People are also being turned off by the Qwerty keypads since the Blackberry Torch flopped as a next-gen device for RIM and its also a slider to boot. And the Verizon Motorola Droid Pro, Qwerty meets Android. won’t work trust me, people hate Qwerty.
December 3rd, 2010
Geez…People will believe anything they read on the Internet these days.
Windows Phone will be just fine despite what all the MS bashers say. People have been speculating on how many actual phones have been sold since day one. Yes it did get off to a slow start and people are associating it with the Kin but it’s future is bright. There’s enough room in the smartphone market for Apple, Google, Rim, and Microsoft.
And people don’t hate qwerty keyboards. A lot of people insist on having a slide out keyboard, me included.
December 7th, 2010
@Darrell,
“People will believe anything they read on the Internet these days.”
People strongly suspect that Windows Phone 7 was DOA based on what they have read on the Internet. What confirms such suspicions is not anything they have read, but what they *have not* read: anything regarding sales figures from Microsoft itself. The deafening silence from Redmond speaks volumes, particularly given the boasting regarding Kinect sales.
If Windows Phone 7 has indeed bombed as badly as it appears, the wheels have fallen off Microsoft’s pitiful mobile phone efforts for the last time. It is also likely, by extension, that Microsoft will never have a significant presence in the burgeoning tablet market. So what you are seeing in this damp squib is the abusive monopoly’s last hurrah: it is now clear that Microsoft’s decline is irreversible, and that it is fated to irrelevance at best. Sic transit gloria.