Demand for low-end phones is dropping, source says

May 7, 2015 09:22 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft has been mostly about budget Windows Phone models lately, most likely in an attempt to gain market share in emerging markets, but it turns out that all these efforts won’t be really paying off in certain countries across the world.

A new report published by Digitimes and citing undisclosed sources indicates that Microsoft has lowered its Windows Phone device orders because demand for budget models has been below expectations in the last few months and forecasts are not at all optimistic.

Sales in markets such as India, South America, and Southeast Asia have dropped significantly, the report adds, and Microsoft has struggled to make its new devices available exactly in these regions. Current forecasts point to a continuous decline for the rest of the year, and based on these estimates, Microsoft has decided to decrease its orders by as much as 20 percent.

Chinese competition getting fiercer

One of the reasons Microsoft’s Windows Phone devices are becoming less appealing in emerging markets is the growing competition coming from Chinese manufacturers, such as Xiaomi, ZTE, and Huawei, all of which are bringing new devices to the market that are available for at least the same price.

Microsoft, in the meantime, is trying to bring all these manufacturers on its side and increase the number of Windows Phone devices on the market, so even though it might experience a small decline in the coming months, the company could actually win in the long term if partnerships with these Chinese manufacturers are reached.

Windows 10 is supposed to change all of these and make Microsoft’s mobile platform more appealing to both users and phone makers, but the new operating system won’t arrive sooner than the fall of 2015.

According to unconfirmed information, October 2015 is very likely to be the month witnessing the debut of Windows 10 for phones, while the PC version will launch in the summer.