14 DAY TRIAL // Windows Phone was, is, and will continue to be the third most popular mobile operating system after Android and iOS (at least until Windows 10 comes out), but app statistics provided by Microsoft today show that adoption is on the rise in several countries.
Both Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 have been getting more and more users lately, as everyone is preparing for the free upgrade to Windows 10, and Microsoft says that both “have been the primary operating systems over an extended period of time.”
Graphs provided by the software giant indeed show that Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 are driving most app downloads these days, but in the case of the smartphone platform, Windows Phone 8 is still alive and kicking for now. Its share, however, is declining, and the same trend is expected to continue in the coming months, as we move closer to the release of Windows 10.
Low-memory devices for the win
In the last few months, Microsoft has been mostly about budget Windows Phone devices, so the only flagships on the market continue to be the Lumia 1520 and Lumia 930.
App download statistics show that 68 percent of the downloads that were made between January and March 2015 happened on low-memory devices, whereas only 32 percent were performed on high end devices.
Games is still the top app category in the store, whereas Tools & Productivity, Music & Videos, and Social are also following up closely.
“Since we began posting these trend updates, we’ve seen categories and rankings become fairly stable. The main exception has been the Games category for Windows, which continues to grow and now accounts for over 45% of windows downloads,” Microsoft says.
And last but not least, there are countries where Windows Phone adoption is on the rise, so they lead the app download charts this time.
For example, the United States is currently the market with most downloads on both Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1, followed by India, Brazil, and Vietnam. It’s pretty obvious that Microsoft’s efforts to bring more affordable devices to the market are paying off, so the company might be playing the winning card here.
Windows 10 for phones is expected to arrive in the second half of 2015, but it’s not yet clear whether Microsoft plans to release it together with the PC version of the new OS or soon after that.
