14 DAY TRIAL // Windows Phone is losing ground, there’s no surprise here, but at the same time, Microsoft shows little to no interest in doing anything about it and the company prefers to stay quiet even though developers and users alike are leaving the platform.
And while this can’t be good by any means for the future of Microsoft in mobile, there’s another reason why the company should actually increase its focus on smartphones: Internet usage on mobile devices is growing so fast that, last month, it finally exceeded the desktop for the first time ever.
Data provided by StatCounter shows that mobile devices accounted for 51.3 percent of all Internet usage last month, while the desktop dropped to 48.7 percent.
Microsoft’s opportunity to grow in mobile
This didn’t happen in all markets, however, and StatCounter says that desktops continue to be the primary mode of Internet usage in mature markets such as the United States and the United Kingdom, but even here, there’s a fast transition trend to mobile that could lead to a switch of places in the coming months.
“Post-Brexit, UK businesses should be aware, as they look to increase trade outside the EU, that India for example has over 75% internet usage through mobile devices,” Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter, said.
In the United States, for example, 58 percent of the Internet traffic takes place on the desktop, while in the United Kingdom, 44 percent of the users are on mobile.
In the rest of the world, however, including here large markets such as India and China, the transition to mobile devices is more than obvious. In these countries, more and more customers are replacing their PCs with mobile phones and this is where Microsoft could be playing the winning card.
With a Windows phone, customers can have both a smartphone and a portable PC thanks to Continuum, a feature that allows the handset to connect to an external screen and work almost like on a desktop version of Windows 10. But without continued investment in Windows phones and new devices, Microsoft is missing the boat here and something needs to change as soon as possible.