14 DAY TRIAL // Windows Phone has been losing ground for quite some time now, so it shouldn’t be a big surprise that the same declining trend was maintained in the three-month period ending August 2016 too.
Data provided by Kantar shows that Windows Phone is down in all but one big market when compared to 2015 sales, and it’s hard to believe that a recovery would be possible in the coming months given that Microsoft itself seems to be less interested in investing in mobile these days.
First and foremost, Windows Phone experienced a substantial decline in European markets, even though these have always been the most successful for the platform.
In Germany, Windows Phone declined 6.5% to 4.0%, while in the United Kingdom, the platform dropped from 11.2% to 4.9%. Windows Phone also nosedived in France where it lost no less than 8.1% to settle at 5%, while in Italy it went from 13.7% to no less than 4.9%.
Share growing in Japan
As far as the United States is concerned, Windows Phone lost ground here as well, but this time, it only declined from 3.5% to 2.3%. This means it experienced a drop of 1.2% in Microsoft’s home market.
Windows Phone is now powering only 0.1% of the phones in China, down from 2.3% last year, while in Australia it lost 5% share to reach 2.4%.
The only market where Windows Phone actually increased is Japan, where it doubled its share to 0.6% for a reason that’s not very clear right now.
Unfortunately, the same decline is likely to continue in the coming months due to the fact that everything seems to be going backwards for the platform, with rumors now claiming that the Lumia brand could be discontinued completely in December this year.
Microsoft has remained tight-lipped on everything regarding its mobile lineup so far, but even the uncertainty is hurting the platform, and more devs and users prefer to jump ship to Android or iOS.