Windows Phone Gains Market Share as Nokia, BlackBerry Fall

[Caffeinecarl]

[citation][nom]zybch[/nom]Your math ability is pretty indicative of the American education system.Android going from 45.4 to 51.2 is certainly a gain, but only one of around 8.7%, while its around 65% increase for WP. In the UK WP share more than doubled and in Italy its an almost 300% increase.However, the percentages really shouldn't be looked at too hard as android tablets are counted as phones which skews things somewhat, and many people including myself have multiple devices from the different groupings represented by these new numbers.Android is a useful OS, but its so damn ugly and fragmented it really shouldn't be counted as a single system any more. Also, its free to license, unlike all of the other OSes. It would be interesting to see how the pie would be divided if royalties had to be paid by handset manufacturers like with every other mobile OS.[/citation]

I knew somebody was going to try and hit me with something about my methodologies, but I stand by them. Android started from relative nothing and they've come to be the leading platform. Regardless of how "fragmented" the devices might be, all the underlying framework is unified. That's one of the things I like about Android is that if I don't quite like the look and feel of one device, I can choose another that works generally the same but has a couple little tweaks where it's a bit more suited to my liking. Windows Phone and iOS are just what they are. Exactly the same every time. Don't forget, also, that Windows Mobile (the predecessor) had a much larger share than the current Windows Phone has now. Also, it's backed by Microsoft. The vendor of roughly 93% of all desktop operating systems. I would have expected higher numbers from them.

Lastly, moving the needle 5.8% in your favor when the market is already fairly well saturated is a pretty large feat.

 

[rantoc]

[citation][nom]Caffeinecarl[/nom]So Android gains from 45.4% to 51.2%, which is a gain of 5.8%, while Windows Phone goes from 2.7% to 4.1% which is a total gain of 1.4%...So in other words, Android gains marketshare of almost 1.5x all of Windows Phone's installed base, but yet the news is that Windows Phone is doing so well?BIASED MUCH?!There is a clear leader in the mobile OS race, and it's Android![/citation]

See it this way - A gain from 45.4% to 51.2% isn't much of a % on a year/year basis ... but going from 2.7% to 4.1% is a huge % increase for a year/year basis and that is telling for the future if the trend continues - That is what the article is about.

 

[Caffeinecarl]

[citation][nom]rantoc[/nom]See it this way - A gain from 45.4% to 51.2% isn't much of a % on a year/year basis ... but going from 2.7% to 4.1% is a huge % increase for a year/year basis and that is telling for the future if the trend continues - That is what the article is about.[/citation]
Considering that it's backed by Microsoft, it's still quite disappointing.

 

[mforce2]

[citation][nom]Caffeinecarl[/nom]So Android gains from 45.4% to 51.2%, which is a gain of 5.8%, while Windows Phone goes from 2.7% to 4.1% which is a total gain of 1.4%...So in other words, Android gains marketshare of almost 1.5x all of Windows Phone's installed base, but yet the news is that Windows Phone is doing so well?BIASED MUCH?!There is a clear leader in the mobile OS race, and it's Android![/citation]
Yeah but MS in comming in fast ... at this rate it's going to overtake Android ... never 😀

Yes I'm biased but I'm biased for a reason. MS is nothing but trouble. They have their own closed standards that they love.... and when their is an open standard or something they just push thier own stuff anyway.
With Android you have customization, ROMs, community involvement , porting of new Android by the community and all kinds of good things.

If it were MS who was the leader you'd have to pay 1000$ for that very special Visual Studio to develop Windows Phone Apps.

 

[alextheblue]

[citation][nom]jacobsta811[/nom]This is so not the way to look at it - Nokia went all in on Windows, so say, for example Italy, what really happened is that only half of Nokia's customers stuck with them and went windows, while the other half defected to Android mostly. Pretty poor news for Nokia. At best ambivalent for MS since they do need to eventually build out of the "former symbian" market.[/citation]If you add together the numbers for Symbian and WP, the total is 16.8%. That's not bad, certainly not a "half of them defected" kind of number. Before WP8 devices hit the market, Symbian was already bleeding marketshare like crazy. Most of that was Nokia's fault. I like WP8, but they killed Symbian off too soon, and that hurt their sales.[citation][nom]Herr_Koos[/nom]They probably meant Symbian, but yes, it is a bit confusing.[/citation]The headline should have just said "Symbian" instead of "Nokia".

 

[Caffeinecarl]

Android really has everything going for it. Low hardware costs, open source software which makes all the modding and customization possible, expandability, and now more than ever, big name recognition.

When the same operating system that's on a power user's phone is on an entry level phone, a mainstream phone and somebody's phone who just wants it because it's stylish and fun and easy to use no matter how expensive it is, you've cornered the market on ubiquity. Neither Windows Phone nor iOS can claim this distinction and it's been key to Android's success.

 

[ojas]

What? No India? I am offended. 😛

 

[ojas]

Ok StatCounter stuff for India:
http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_os-IN-monthly-201210-201303

Series40: 33.31%
Android 18.65%
"Samsung": 17.34
Symbian: 16.52
Unknown: 9.76
iOS: 1.15% ( :lol: )

Anyway, StatCOunter's global stuff:
http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_os-ww-monthly-201210-201303

 

[shadowfamicom]

All a company has to do to get my $$$ is to make a push to bring back physical keyboards. If MS started making the makers of WP8 produce a QWERTY phone... I would be sold.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]Caffeinecarl[/nom]So Android gains from 45.4% to 51.2%, which is a gain of 5.8%, while Windows Phone goes from 2.7% to 4.1% which is a total gain of 1.4%...So in other words, Android gains marketshare of almost 1.5x all of Windows Phone's installed base, but yet the news is that Windows Phone is doing so well?BIASED MUCH?!There is a clear leader in the mobile OS race, and it's Android![/citation]

So, Windows phone going up by what, 50%, while Android goes up by about 10% is a win for Android? Just because Android gained more in total market share doesn't mean that Windows Phone didn't have a huge improvement.

 

[hiryu]

[citation][nom]Caffeinecarl[/nom]So Android gains from 45.4% to 51.2%, which is a gain of 5.8%, while Windows Phone goes from 2.7% to 4.1% which is a total gain of 1.4%...So in other words, Android gains marketshare of almost 1.5x all of Windows Phone's installed base, but yet the news is that Windows Phone is doing so well?BIASED MUCH?!There is a clear leader in the mobile OS race, and it's Android![/citation]See it this way - A gain from 45.4% to 51.2% isn't much of a % on a year/year basis ... but going from 2.7% to 4.1% is a huge % increase for a year/year basis and that is telling for the future if the trend continues - That is what the article is about.

I think if we want a clearer picture, we always need to look at both relative and absolute growth. Looking at only one of them could be very misleading especially if the base number is very small.To take it more extreme, if I release a phone, and only managed sell to one customer, my relative growth would be infinite.