Europe is also moving away from Windows 10 Mobile

Apr 6, 2016 08:32 GMT  ·  By

Windows 10 Mobile was launched last month after a really long and painful wait, but despite its arrival, the overall share of Windows phones keeps collapsing even in markets where the platform was a little bit more successful.

New data provided by Kantar (via MSPU) shows that Windows is losing users pretty much everywhere, including both Europe and the United States. It’s a well-known fact that Europe has always been one of the most successful markets for Windows Phone, but it appears that users on the Old Continent have also decided to jump ship.

The biggest drop was experienced in Italy where Windows Phone dropped from 14.4 percent in the three-month period ending in February 2015 to just 6.7 percent in the February 2016, thus posting a decline of no less than 7.7 percent.

Similar performance was experienced in France too, where Windows Phone dropped from 14.2 percent to 7.3 percent, but also in Spain, where it declined to 0.9 percent from 2.9 percent. A 1.9 percent collapse was also experienced in Germany. Overall, in the EU5 region Windows Phone lost 4.2 percentage points, down from 10.1 percent.

Windows 10 Mobile only available on some devices

As far as the United States is concerned, Windows went down 2.2 percent from 4.8 percent, while in China it maintained its share of 0.9 percent.

There are many reasons for this steep decline, but the main seems to be the rather limited availability of Windows 10 Mobile. Microsoft is only offering the new OS to approximately 50 percent of its Windows Phone devices, so after the long wait, many users most likely decided to jump ship and move to Android or iOS.

Android has improved its share in nearly every single market, so it’s very clear that Windows Phone has a hard time keeping users on-board given Microsoft’s unexpected strategy.