14 DAY TRIAL // Windows Phone 7 devices certainly got off to an excellent start following global launch at the end of 2010, but the platform needs to sustain the initial growth throughout 2011, and it won’t be easy to make headway against Android and iOS / iPhone. According to figures released by the Redmond company, its partners sold in excess of 2 million Windows Phone 7 smartphones in the last quarter of the past year.
I’ve said this before, Windows Phone 7 is in a different league than Windows Mobile, and is an OS that can hold its own against Android and iOS without any problems.
However, both Android phone and the iPhone have been on the market for quite some time now, and even with WP7 hitting the ground running, for the time being sales of Windows Phone 7 devices are just a drop in the ocean of smartphone units sold in 2011.
International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker reveals that 100.9 million smartphones were sold in Q4 2010, with 302.6 million smartphones shipped worldwide in 2010.
The 2 million WP7 devices end up looking almost like a summer breeze compared to a hurricane.
"Android continues to gain by leaps and bounds, helping to drive the smartphone market," revealed Ramon Llamas, senior research analyst with IDC's Mobile Phone Technology and Trends team.
"It has become the cornerstone of multiple vendors' smartphone strategies, and has quickly become a challenger to market leader Symbian.
“Although Symbian has the backing of market leader Nokia, Android has multiple vendors, including HTC, LG Electronics, Motorola, Samsung and a growing list of companies deploying Android on their devices."
Apple shipped some 47.5 million iPhones in 2010, up from 25.1 million just a year before, 16.2 million of which just in Q4.
There has been some talk recently about the need for Nokia and Microsoft to make a strategic alliance that would be focused on putting Windows Phone 7 on the phones currently reserved for Symbian.
Nokia continues to be top dog when it comes down to smartphone sales with 100.3 million units sold worldwide in 2010, with as much as 28.3 million in the last quarter of 2010.
Such an alliance would certainly help Microsoft increase the market share of Windows Phone 7, boost attractiveness for application developers, grow the app and service ecosystem and in turn provide a better experience to customers.
Perhaps the software giant could do with an edge over Google, as the two companies are currently fighting with weapons provided by the same manufacturers, with HTC, Samsung and LG as examples.
"In their first quarter of commercial availability, both Symbian^3 and Windows Phone 7 ramped up quickly, just in time for the holidays," Llamas explained.
"By the end of the quarter, Nokia had shipped five million Symbian^3 units while Windows Phone 7 vendors shipped more than 1.5 million units. Now, with the holiday quarter over, both platforms will need to sustain this initial growth in the quarters to come."
With former President – Microsoft Business Division Stephen Elop now the Chief Executive Officer of Nokia it’s highly likely that the two companies will continue their ongoing partnership, especially related to the Office suite.
However, there’s certainly room for more, but will Windows Phone 7 on Nokia devices ever become a reality?