Microsoft has been deceptively quiet on the sales of Windows phone device since the platform was first introduced a few years back. Since the announcement, the company has avoided giving hard sales figures for the public to adore over and many believe that is because the platform has not been selling well.
While Microsoft has given a few hints that Windows Phone 8 has been doing better than Windows Phone 7, one analyst is claiming that only 1 million Windows Phone devices were sold in the US for 2012. This number, if true, would almost certainly be below Microsoft’s expectations especially after the launch of Windows phone 8 in Q4 of last year. But the problem is, the numbers don’t add up.
Now, seeing that they are stating 1 million in sales for all of 2012 for the US, we have to begin to question the numbers. Why, you say? Well, Nokia said that they had 700,000 sales of devices in the North American market in Q4 and while the NA market for Nokia is made up of more than the US, surely a substantial of those came from the US and that is only one quarter of the year.
If you then look at Q3, Nokia stated that they sold 300,000 phones in NA and when you start to think about that this is one vendor (albeit the largest Windows Phone producer), the above figures begin to not seem plausible, but down right laughable as the firm must not have done their research into the publically available figures.
So, did Microsoft sell more than one million Windows Phones in the US? It seems highly likely that this is the case as the numbers from Nokia alone look to prove the analyst wrong and that’s not including Samsung and HTC, who are also selling phones in the US. In addition, the HTC 8X was said to be selling well in the US and was listed as out of stock several times across a few different e-tailers.
The interesting thing about Windows Phone is that it has been receiving great reviews across the board. Despite being loved by the tech bloggers, it has yet to be adored by consumers on a scale that even comes close to rivaling Apple or Google. While Microsoft has the bankroll to support Windows Phone until it becomes a mainstream product, the question of how long this will take remains unanswered.
But for the 1M number for total sales in the US in 2012, the math doesn"t add up.
Source: Telecompaper.com