Nokia, Microsoft’s biggest Windows Phone smartphone partner, announced that it shipped just 4 million Lumia phones worldwide between April and the end of June. Nokia’s biggest rejection came in North America, where the company during the recent quarter shipped just 600,000 Windows Phone and Symbian devices.
Compare that to Samsung’s upcoming earnings announcement, which is expected to include sales of more than 50 million Android-powered smartphones over the past three months. And Apple’s most recent quarterly numbers reported iPhone sales topping 35 million. Even the struggling Research In Motion saw a bigger demand for BlackBerry phones, shipping 7.8 million devices between March and early June.
Windows Phone Gets Smoked
Since Windows Phone 7 is essentially a dead end, the mobile platform’s popularity is unlikely to improve in the coming months, despite cheaply priced devices like the $50 Lumia 900. This fall, Microsoft will launch Windows Phone 8, a new version of Windows Phone that is incompatible with the current iteration. That means that every current Windows Phone 7 device — including Nokia’s flagship Lumia 900 — will not be able to upgrade to the new OS. Instead, Windows Phone 7 users will receive a cosmetic update called Windows Phone 7.8 that will give current devices the same start screen as Windows Phone 8.
Lucky Eight
That must be frustrating for both Microsoft and Nokia since, at least in my opinion, Windows Phone is a very good OS. It’s missing a few key apps in the Marketplace such as Dropbox and Instagram, and personally I’d like to see Instapaper and Chess.com. And some of the functionality in Windows Phone is not as well thought out as it should be. The Pictures hub, for example, can automatically upload your camera images to SkyDrive, but Windows Phone doesn’t provide an option to upload pictures only when you’re connected to Wi-Fi.
Nevertheless, I am seriously considering Windows Phone 8 as my next smartphone, depending on how the app situation shakes out. It’s a good, functional mobile platform, but it seems quality is not enough when it comes to taking on the more popular Android and iOS juggernauts.
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