Windows Phone has been falling in the smartphone market in the past couple of years. Lack of new devices from Microsoft, along with the slow development of Windows 10 Mobile is probably the cause. According to the latest report from Gartner, Windows phone now claims only 0.3% of the market, which is really sad to see as a Nokia and Windows Phone fan.
Android is still the king of the smartphone market with 81.7% share, selling more than 352 million units. Apple’s iOS, on the other hand, claims 17.9% of the market, selling 77 million units. Both Android and iOS experienced decent growth over the last year — Google’s Android grew by 1% year-over-year, while Apple’s iOS saw an increase of 0.2%.
Windows phone, for comparison, claimed 1.1% of the market last year (YoY) — but now it claims only 0.3% which is a pretty big drop. Microsoft and Windows phone OEMs sold more than 4 million units in the fourth quarter of 2015, but only 1 million units were sold in the fourth quarter of 2016.
Windows Phone is dead. It’s been dying for a while now, and none of this really is “news”.
It’s been a while since Microsoft launched its Lumia 950/XL devices — even though the company expected its OEM partners to launch new Windows phone devices, that didn’t really succeed. Companies like HP and Alcatel came out with some ambitious Windows 10 Mobile devices — and these devices (especially the Alcatel Idol 4S) were really great phones, but they didn’t really help Microsoft save Windows Phone from the looks of things.
Microsoft is rumored to be working on a “Surface Phone” — but whether that’ll save Microsoft’s mobile business remains to be seen. Windows 10 on ARM, however, might have a lot of potential.