14 DAY TRIAL // The Windows Phone community is now waiting for the release of Windows 10 Mobile (or at least, for a new preview build), but it appears that it’s exactly this wait that is driving people towards rival platforms.
New statistics provided by Kantar for the three-month period ending December 2015 show that Windows Phone lost users in almost every single big European market, and what’s worse is that this drop is quite significant.
In Italy, for example, which has been one of the largest markets for Windows Phone in Europe, the share of the platform declined 4.6 percent from 12.7 percent in the same period the year before to 8.1 percent in 2015.
The same happened in France too, where Windows Phone dropped from 11.6 percent to 8.7 percent (down 2.9 percent), and Spain, as Microsoft’s mobile platform lost 2.3 percent of the market to eventually settle at 1.5 percent.
The United Kingdom for the win
The only country where Windows Phone actually improved was the United Kingdom, where market share figures were improved from 7.4 percent to 9.2 percent, a growth of 1.8 percent.
As far as the United States is concerned, Windows lost no more, no less than 2.2 percent of the users, dropping to 1.6 percent. The same in Australia, where Windows Phone was down 2.9 percent to 6.3 percent.
As for the reasons that might be causing this dramatic decline for Windows Phone, it’s up to you to name them, but it’s very clear that the wait for Windows 10 Mobile is hurting the platform.
Some users are losing their patience and decide to jump ship to Android or iOS, especially because Microsoft not only keeps everything secret regarding Windows 10 Mobile but also seems to be focused on its iOS apps more than ever (and this is anything but acceptable for the Windows community).