Windows Phone - Fading into Obscurity ?
Back in January I posted that 2014 would be a make or break year for WP.
WP maintained about a 5% market share in the US...
90% of all WP sold were Nokia
Entry level phones like the 520/521 dominated sales
Since then not too much has changed...
WP still maintains a 4.7% market share in the US according the Kantar WorldPanel.
Nokia still represents over 90% of WP sales. In the US it's over 95%.
Entry level phones still dominate the portfolio. According the AdDuplex over 47% of WP sales in the US are at the 520/521 and 630/635 entry level devices and many of the higher end devices barely register on their pie chart or are barely in the top 10.
This week Verizon announced the "retirement" of the Lumia Icon or 930 series device that was released in Jan. So in less than a year Verizon retired it's flagship WP device. Even prior to that - other blogs and WP sites have mentioned how Verizon didn't even carry the phone in many of their stores and that folks were often steered towards iPhone or Android.
While MS did announce two new devices the 730/735 and 830 at IFA - the possibility exists that Verizon, the 2nd largest carrier in the US may not pick it up.
AT&T did announce they will carry the 830 - and so the question may be what will they do with the 1020 and 1520 devices. They are now well over a year old and while nice devices - they sell poorly - and there doesn't appear to be a flagship replacement on the horizon...
In my mind there is a distinct possibility that if the 730/735 and 830 do not sell well this holiday season - that AT&T and TMO may also drop WP from their offerings in early 2015. And outside of the AT&T 830 announcement I have not seen anything from TMO. Considering it's mid October and the holiday season is a month away - AT&T & TMO don't seen to have any sense of urgency here. Why would any carrier waste their time on devices they barely make any money on and have to discount like crazy to sell..
Back in January I stated that MS had to address some critical areas with WP to help try and make it viable..
First was a branding decision. With the transition to Satya Nadella as CEO - MS changed their direction to Mobile First / Cloud First. In my mind this would mean a decision regarding branding in Mobile. Well there hasn't really been one. MS has stayed with the Nokia brand so far. Mostly because of it's stickiness in the EU where WP maintains a 9% market share. But to be honest it's not moving the needle.
Second was around investments in App Development partners. While MS did invest in a company called Tamarin to help accelerate the development of WP apps that were based on iOS or Android - the reality still is that the large majority of new apps are not being developed for WP. Yes there has been some improvement in number of apps available. But many are missing and key members of the internet community like Google - won't create native WP versions of their most popular apps - like YouTube, Gmail, gMaps, etc..
I have to argue that MS themselves are having a hard time. There have been countless updates to the Music app this year. In fact it's been kind of a running joke that oh - MS released a new version of Music this week and oh it still doesn't work well... They also recently re-branded the "Bing" apps to the MSN apps. Why ?
Just as with Windows 8/8.1 - I have made the argument over and over if that you removed the "Bing" apps from the Modern Desktop it would be a very lonely place. The same is true for WP. In my opinion MS went the wrong direction on Branding - they needed to drop MSN for Bing..
Finally was the improvements to the App Store experience. So yes the ability to find a new app has improved. But the same can't be said for Music or Movies and there are still no books.
In this writers opinion, MS has failed in all three areas this year. The result is - they are seeing no growth in the Mobile platform. Look at it this way - Apple sold more iPhones Worldwide over the iPhone 6 opening weekend (10M) than MS sold worldwide for all of Q2 2014 (8M). And Apple only maintains a 30% market share here is the US..
The shame of all of this is - I like WP. I've owned HTC and multiple Nokia devices from 7.5 through 8.1 including a new 635 I bought in September. But like many I have been very frustrated with MS's poor execution around updates and apps.
MS has failed miserably with WP from a market perspective and while they say they are committed to the platform discussing it in their Windows 10 strategy - the US carriers may just say enough is enough and kill WP....
WP maintained about a 5% market share in the US...
90% of all WP sold were Nokia
Entry level phones like the 520/521 dominated sales
Since then not too much has changed...
WP still maintains a 4.7% market share in the US according the Kantar WorldPanel.
Nokia still represents over 90% of WP sales. In the US it's over 95%.
Entry level phones still dominate the portfolio. According the AdDuplex over 47% of WP sales in the US are at the 520/521 and 630/635 entry level devices and many of the higher end devices barely register on their pie chart or are barely in the top 10.
This week Verizon announced the "retirement" of the Lumia Icon or 930 series device that was released in Jan. So in less than a year Verizon retired it's flagship WP device. Even prior to that - other blogs and WP sites have mentioned how Verizon didn't even carry the phone in many of their stores and that folks were often steered towards iPhone or Android.
While MS did announce two new devices the 730/735 and 830 at IFA - the possibility exists that Verizon, the 2nd largest carrier in the US may not pick it up.
AT&T did announce they will carry the 830 - and so the question may be what will they do with the 1020 and 1520 devices. They are now well over a year old and while nice devices - they sell poorly - and there doesn't appear to be a flagship replacement on the horizon...
In my mind there is a distinct possibility that if the 730/735 and 830 do not sell well this holiday season - that AT&T and TMO may also drop WP from their offerings in early 2015. And outside of the AT&T 830 announcement I have not seen anything from TMO. Considering it's mid October and the holiday season is a month away - AT&T & TMO don't seen to have any sense of urgency here. Why would any carrier waste their time on devices they barely make any money on and have to discount like crazy to sell..
Back in January I stated that MS had to address some critical areas with WP to help try and make it viable..
First was a branding decision. With the transition to Satya Nadella as CEO - MS changed their direction to Mobile First / Cloud First. In my mind this would mean a decision regarding branding in Mobile. Well there hasn't really been one. MS has stayed with the Nokia brand so far. Mostly because of it's stickiness in the EU where WP maintains a 9% market share. But to be honest it's not moving the needle.
Second was around investments in App Development partners. While MS did invest in a company called Tamarin to help accelerate the development of WP apps that were based on iOS or Android - the reality still is that the large majority of new apps are not being developed for WP. Yes there has been some improvement in number of apps available. But many are missing and key members of the internet community like Google - won't create native WP versions of their most popular apps - like YouTube, Gmail, gMaps, etc..
I have to argue that MS themselves are having a hard time. There have been countless updates to the Music app this year. In fact it's been kind of a running joke that oh - MS released a new version of Music this week and oh it still doesn't work well... They also recently re-branded the "Bing" apps to the MSN apps. Why ?
Just as with Windows 8/8.1 - I have made the argument over and over if that you removed the "Bing" apps from the Modern Desktop it would be a very lonely place. The same is true for WP. In my opinion MS went the wrong direction on Branding - they needed to drop MSN for Bing..
Finally was the improvements to the App Store experience. So yes the ability to find a new app has improved. But the same can't be said for Music or Movies and there are still no books.
In this writers opinion, MS has failed in all three areas this year. The result is - they are seeing no growth in the Mobile platform. Look at it this way - Apple sold more iPhones Worldwide over the iPhone 6 opening weekend (10M) than MS sold worldwide for all of Q2 2014 (8M). And Apple only maintains a 30% market share here is the US..
The shame of all of this is - I like WP. I've owned HTC and multiple Nokia devices from 7.5 through 8.1 including a new 635 I bought in September. But like many I have been very frustrated with MS's poor execution around updates and apps.
MS has failed miserably with WP from a market perspective and while they say they are committed to the platform discussing it in their Windows 10 strategy - the US carriers may just say enough is enough and kill WP....
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