14 DAY TRIAL // We’ve known for a while that Windows phones have basically no future, but every press release and batch of data pointing to the collapse of the platform is still painful for diehard fans.
NetMarketShare, for instance, which is one of the top companies providing market share data for desktop operating systems and browsers, says Windows Phone has dropped so much that it now has nearly the same share as Nokia’s Series 40.
But let’s take everything one at a time and dissect these December 2017 figures.
Android, top mobile platform
First and foremost, Android is the leading platform, according to the company, with a share of 68.39%, followed by Apple’s iOS with 30.56%. Nothing unusual here, given that everyone puts Android on the first place with more than double the market share of iOS.
An unknown category is listed as third in the charts with 0.61%, followed by the so-called “Windows Phone OS” with 0.15% market share. Nokia’s Series 40 is next with 0.12%.
As far as the version of Windows Phone that has 0.15% market share is concerned, Windows 10 Mobile accounts for the biggest part of the share, as older releases are referred to as “Windows Mobile” and are listed with 0.00% market share.
Of course, it goes without saying that these stats aren’t necessarily surprising, especially because Microsoft itself admitted that Windows 10 Mobile no longer has a future. No new hardware and features are planned on the mobile front, Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore said last year, so most users have already migrated, or are in the process of doing it, to Android and iOS.
Sooner or later, “Windows Phone OS” will collapse to Linux level in these stats, as the open-source platform is currently at 0.03% market share in the mobile world. And at this point, it’s only a matter of time until this happens.
