Microsoft"s mobile phone business has not made much of a dent in the industry compared to its rivals Google, Apple, and RIM. However, Microsoft is confident that situation will change. Bloomberg reports that according to Achim Berg, head of marketing for Windows Phone, current predictions by analysts about the OS"s market share in the next few years are "conservative". Those predictions, from organizations like Gartner and IDC, have claimed Windows Phone could capture about 20 percent of the smartphone market by 2015.
Berg believes that in the end Windows Phone-based products will take a bigger piece of the smartphone pie. He said, "This is a completely new platform, it takes time. It took time with Android, it took time with Apple. We have to show that we’re very capable and that we have the fastest and easiest phone." There"s no doubt that Microsoft has a lot of work to do to make those plans a reality. This week, a new study by Nielsen showed that Windows Phone 7 was used by just one percent of the smartphone owners in the US in July 2011. Google"s Android OS had 40 percent of that market followed by Apple"s iOS platform at 28 percent and RIM"s Blackberry at 19 percent. Microsoft"s discontinued Windows Mobile was still holding onto a seven percent market share.
The news comes as new Windows Phone 7.5 devices from HTC, the Radar and the Titan, were announced on Thursday. The phones will go on sale in Europe in October and Berg says Microsoft is working with HTC to train hundreds of salespeople to promote and sell the new smartphones.