A drop from 8.4 million devices the same quarter of 2015

Jul 29, 2016 06:06 GMT  ·  By

Windows Phone is getting hit after hit, and with Microsoft remaining tight-lipped about the fate of the platform (Redmond isn’t saying anything else than “we’re supporting the ecosystem”), sales continue to go down every new quarter.

In the most recent financial report, Microsoft has revealed that phone revenue declined by 71 percent, but no other specifics have been provided, such as the number of units sold during the quarter.

And yet, MSPU has spotted a reference in the most recent 10-K filing, which offers a closer look at the performance of the phone unit and lets us know how it did when compared to the same quarter the year before. Here’s what Microsoft says in the filing:

“Phone revenue decreased $4.2 billion or 56%, as we sold 13.8 million Microsoft Lumia (‘Lumia’) phones and 75.5 million other phones in fiscal year 2016, compared with 36.8 million and 126.8 million sold, respectively, in fiscal year 2015.”

No word on what’s next for Windows phones

According to calculations performed by the aforementioned source, this means that Microsoft sold only 1.22 million phones during the second quarter of 2016, down from no less than 8.4 million the same quarter of 2015. The previous quarter, Microsoft shipped 2.3 million phones.

The biggest question right now is how impacted the Windows Phone ecosystem is now that Microsoft is selling considerably fewer devices.

While there are many people who think that Windows Phone will survive even without Microsoft’s involvement, that’s not entirely true. There are indeed more companies joining the Windows Phone effort, but they’re mostly small producers with limited market coverage, such as China, Japan, or India, so they’re unlikely to make a big difference.

Furthermore, Microsoft represents approximately 90 percent of the whole Windows Phone market when it comes to OEMs, so it’s very clear that a major decline for Microsoft means a major decline for the whole ecosystem. If only Microsoft said what’s next for Windows phones...