Stats reveal continued decline for Windows phones

May 10, 2017 09:25 GMT  ·  By

Long-time Windows phone users probably noticed the irony in the headline, but unfortunately, the latest statistics provided by Kantar indeed point to continued decline for Microsoft’s mobile platform.

Of course, this doesn’t come as a big surprise given the fact that nothing is happening in the Windows phone ecosystem lately, and with Microsoft thinking it’s better to remain tight-lipped on the future of its mobile vision, it’s certainly perfectly normal for worldwide sales to collapse.

Windows phone’s sales share in Europe, which has always been Microsoft’s biggest market in mobile, is going down at a fast pace, with Spain dropping to no less than 0.4 percent in the three-month period ending March 2017 versus the same period the year before.

Italy and Germany remain the biggest European markets for Windows phones, with shares now at 4 percent and 3.3 percent, respectively, though substantial drops were recorded in these countries as well. In Italy, for instance, the drop was 2.3 percentage points versus the year before, but the biggest decline was recorded in the United Kingdom where the platform collapsed 4.3 percent.

Down in the US as well

Overall, in the EU5 region, Windows dropped to 2.4 percent from 4.9 percent the year before, while Android and iOS remain the clear leaders with 76.3 and 20.7 percent, respectively.

Windows phones aren’t doing better in Microsoft’s home market either, with stats showing a drop of 1 percent to 1.7 percent sales share. China experienced a decline of 0.3 percent to 0.2 percent, while in Australia Windows phones went down by 3.1 percent to settle at 0.6 percent.

Is there any chance to see these figures improving by any means in the coming months? Definitely no, especially because there are no big updates and hardware releases on the radar. Microsoft itself seems to be hinting that the Redstone 3 update for Windows phones is nothing more than a maintenance release, with no major features or improvements planned for the time being.