14 DAY TRIAL // Back in January, when Microsoft announced the financial results for the most recent quarter, the company revealed a 57 percent drop in terms of sold Lumia devices, so many rushed to predict the death of Windows Phone.
Fast forward to April 21, and we have new statistics, this time for the third quarter of fiscal year 2016, but also revealing a huge drop for Windows Phone.
Specifically, Microsoft said that its phone business declined 46 percent in constant currency during the quarter, and it sold only 2.3 million Lumia units during the same period. This is down from 8.6 million sold units the same quarter the year before.
Microsoft also revealed that it sold a total of 15.7 million other phones in Q3 FY16, but these are most likely feature phones still wearing Nokia’s badge.
The company itself admitted the drop recorded by the phone business and said that it expects the decline to continue in the next quarters.
“In devices, we anticipate continued momentum and growth for Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book, particularly with business customers. For phone we expect year over year revenue declines to deepen in Q4 as we work through our Lumia channel position. In search we will continue to show healthy revenue growth with full year profitability,” Amy Hood, executive vice president and chief financial officer at Microsoft, explained in a conference call with analysts.
What’s next for Windows phones
The decline doesn’t come as a big surprise, though, as Microsoft has put only little effort into the marketing strategy for new Lumia devices and Windows 10 Mobile. While the company started with an aggressive marketing campaign for new Lumia models such as 950 and 950 XL, it’s now more focused on other devices and says that Windows phones would only see “cooler things” next year.
People with knowledge of the matter claim that Microsoft no longer wants to produce any Lumia phones, and the company is aiming to focus exclusively on one model, and this could be the Surface Phone.
Coming next year, the Surface Phone is expected to be developed by the same division that makes the Surface tablets and laptops and supervised by Panos Panay. It could be available in three different models, each targeting different categories of customers.
This is one of the main reasons the company expects Windows phones to drop even more in the next quarters, but there’s no doubt that it has big hopes that a recovery could be reached in 2017, when the Surface Phone hits the market.