14 DAY TRIAL // Since Microsoft launched the Windows Phone 8.1 Developer Preview, many users have decided to become early adopters and install this version of the operating system on their devices even though it wasn’t the final version and not everything worked as intended.
Given the fact that Windows Phone 8.1 is now rolling out to compatible smartphones, it makes sense that the number of devices that run this OS version should continue to grow over the next months.
Although the deployment of the update began several weeks ago, there are still a lot of smartphone models in lots of countries that have yet to receive Windows Phone 8.1.
Nevertheless, things can only improve for Windows Phone users, and the monthly AdDuplex stats recently released show that the new operating system will soon become dominant.
The figures published by Neowin as part of AdDuplex’s statistics for the month of August show a real improvement regarding Windows Phone 8.1.
However, if you thought that only Android was affected by fragmentation, then you might change your mind after seeing AdDuplex’s numbers.
It looks like Windows Phone 8.1 is now installed on exactly 24.4% of all Windows Phone handsets on the market. Windows Phone 7.x devices are still present on the market and account for no less than 19.2% of the Windows Phone market share.
Obviously, Windows Phone 8 is the dominant operating system for this month with 56.9% of the market share. This shows that Microsoft needs to push these updates faster or Windows Phone might end up like Android with lots of versions that reach supported devices very slow.
On the handset manufacturers’ front, there’s no doubt that Microsoft is the dominant company with 95% of the Windows Phone devices available on the market. HTC is second with 3.3% market share, while Samsung (1.1%), Huawei (0.7%) and other brands complete the hierarchy.
No surprises here, and Microsoft is expected to continue to own the Windows Phone market with its devices, which was one of the reasons it decided to acquire Nokia in the first place.
Given the fact that many handset makers have announced that they will soon launch their first Windows Phone handsets this year, we expect Microsoft’s smartphone market share to slightly shrink, but not by too much.
Microsoft is expected to launch a second major update for Windows Phone 8.1 sometime in fall, so here is hoping that most users receive GDR1 update by the time GDR2 goes live.
