14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has been fairly quiet about its mobile strategy lately, with some people with knowledge of the matter suggesting that the Lumia brand is set to be discontinued in December, but the company is still keen on supporting the Windows 10 Mobile ecosystem in the coming years.
But this strategy, however, has its own downsides and one of them is that the market share of Windows Phone is still collapsing, as developers and users alike are leaving the platform.
As a result, Windows 10 Mobile is no longer posting a growth and AdDuplex says that another reason for this stagnation is that the majority of Windows Phone users who were eligible for the upgrade already moved to the new operating system.
Windows 10 Mobile posted no share growth this month, the data shows, and “unless some major new developments happen,” it’s hard to believe that anything can change in the coming months, the stats show.
“As new Windows 10 phones are scarce and most people who wanted (and knew how) to upgrade their 8.1 phones already did so, it’s hard to expect Windows 10 Mobile share to continue growing from any other source than users of older phones switching to other OSes and dropping out of the ecosystem.”
Windows Phone 8.1 still top version
According to AdDuplex data, Windows Phone 8.1 is now running on 78 percent of the phones in the ecosystem, while Windows 10 Mobile is second with just 14 percent. Windows Phone 8 is third with 6.6 percent, followed by Windows Phone 7.x with 1.4 percent.
The Windows 10 Mobile upgrade is available for only half of the Windows Phone device lineup following a controversial decision that Microsoft announced after previously promising to upgrade the whole portfolio of phones to the new operating system.
For the moment, however, the future’s not looking good for Windows phones, as Microsoft remains tight-lipped on everything related to its mobile strategy, despite the fact that users and devs keep leaving for iOS and Android.