14 DAY TRIAL // After a long absence, Acer is apparently looking to make a comeback into the Windows Phone market at some point next year.
Sources familiar with the matter talked to Focus Taiwan and revealed that the company is planning to roll out at least one handset based on Microsoft’s mobile platform.
Acer planning new budget Windows Phone smartphones
Since the two companies haven’t worked together in a very long time, the first models to arrive on the market under the Acer banner will probably be of the mid-range or entry-level variety.
At this point, we don’t know how many models Acer will roll out in 2015, but as we get closer to the next year, this information will probably be made available to us.
Last time Acer rolled out a Windows Phone device was back in 2011 when the Allegro smartphone went official. The handset was made available with a 3.6-inch WVGA display, 1GHz processor fitted with 512MB of RAM and ran Windows Phone 7.5 out of the box.
As you can see, the smartphone had low-end specs, so we can pretty much expect the same from the new models Acer is going to bring on the market in 2015.
Back in 2012 Microsoft announced that it would be working hand in hand with Nokia, HTC, Samsung and Huawei to bring the first Windows Phone 8-powered devices onto the market.
A few months ago, the Redmond giant announced the expansion of its Windows phone manufacturers from four to thirteen. The newcomers include names like Foxconn, Gionee, JSR, Karbonn, Lava, Lenovo, LG, Longcheer and ZTE.
White the report brought to us by Focus Taiwan doesn’t add a whole lot of details about the upcoming Windows Phone Acer handset, Indian publication Gizbot gives us an additional insight.
According to them, Acer’s first Windows-based smartphone in years is going to be released in the first half of 2015.
Given the time frame, we might as well speculate that the phone won’t be running Windows 10 out of the box, because Microsoft is expected to launch the new version of its mobile OS in late summer/early fall.
The Windows Phone market is growing
Anyway, according to research firm IDC, Windows Phone shipments are estimated to reach a total 35 million units worldwide by the end of the year. This translates into 2.7% of the global market share.
Even if Windows Phone’s popularity is growing exponentially, these numbers are still nothing compared to Android, which remains the world’s biggest smartphone platform with 82.3% market share this year.
