Nielsen: Windows Phone had 1.4% market share in Q4 2011

January 18, 2012 | By Surur

Nielsen have released some quarterly numbers for Q4 2011, and for once it provides some solid numbers by breaking Microsoft’s mobile operating systems down into Windows Phone and Windows Mobile.

The stats shows that Windows Phone had a 1.4% market share amongst smartphone buyers in the last 3 months of 2011, and that the installed base of Windows Phones in US is 1.3%, which, combined with Comscores’s recent numbers, which show there there is 91.6 million smartphones in US, gives us a total of around 1.2 million Windows Phones in use in USA.

Strangely Windows Mobile still has 2.4% market share, but that is likely phones being sold into industrial vertical applications.

Hopefully the introduction of many new phones in US over the next few months will see a significant boost in these numbers.

Read the full report at Nielsen here.

About Surur

Site Admin and Windows Phone enthusiast, he has been using Windows Mobile devices since before they were called PocketPC’s. He is currently sporting a HTC 7 Trophy.

Tagged market share, npd, sales, windows phone 7.5

Anonymous

Well, this is to be expected with only the Radar/Titan released in limited markets beginning in October, the Focus S/Flash in the U.S. in November, and Nokia releasing devices in mid November to limited markets as well. ZTE, Acer…very limited releases.

There are no WP devices produced in mass; hopefully, Nokia will be able to flood the market with their offerings both in the U.S. and abroad.

Anonymous

I’m sure you know it, but just to clarify that the above chart is only about U.S., so it got nothing to do with Nokia.
As first U.S. sold Nokia WP came out this month.

Anonymous

My bad. Still, the numbers are to be expected given HTC/Samsungs paltry offerings.

Hopefully, the world wide numbers will be a little higher.

Anonymous

Market EXPLOSION!

Look out Droid! :p
Anonymous

this is very sad

http://fxfp.com/ Alex F.

What matters is growth – and WP7 grows.

rsgx

1.2 million?

Dammit MS, I could sell more handsets by MYSELF with that budget, in that time-frame.

Try me.

http://www.facebook.com/david.tomilson David Tomilson

Agreed. Can’t they find people that know how to sell devices representing them?
Microsoft, offer me a six figure income and I can spearhead this for you in Canada!

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_HOKQSWPW34HSO7G6IUTT74VVGQ Manu Narayan

Imagine if instead of wasting 500m on the Danger Aquisition they just gave people free WP handsets They could have 2.5M people using Windows Phone!

Anonymous

Usually something you get for nothing…….is worth nothing

Fact of life.

Anonymous

Wow look at RIM. They lost half their share. At this rate, RIM will die off before the old Windows Mobile!
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_UWVRPJYQFEG7ZCHPD7LDPBR2CM LWSJR

These numbers are just sad for WP; in fact, these numbers are puzzling – How can Symbian have an almost 1% marketshare in the U.S. with only one device (The Nokia Astound on T-Mobile, released last Spring) and WP have 1.4% marketshare with (4) 2nd gen devices, and at least 2 or more 1st gen devices still being sold in Q4? And really, if WM was so bad, why are people still holding onto these devices?

At first I thought more handsets would get WP some decent marketshare, but damn! All of these handsets on the market for WP in Q4 and still Symbian is only about half a percent shy of matching WP?

I’m confident that Nokia’s entry in the U.S. will help, but HTC and Samsung need to start pulling their weight and start making devices that other carriers would be interested in or GTFO!

Anonymous

The WM number is due to corporate buyers – many are stuck with vertical market apps that only run on WM.
Anonymous

My opinion is there is something wrong with the identification. Symbian selling almost as many as WP with only 1 model in t-mobile and windows mobile selling double of WP? Can you actually source WM? and how many companies will be buying them as brand new in Q4? I think there is no reliable way to distinguish between the 2 for nielsen. I don’t know if i can trust this. Nokia lumia is a top seller in Europe, it already has 12% of the UK market in 3 months since release and I think in the next month will be the most common WP in the UK, so the Nokia brand sells around 10 times what htc can sell. (at least in europe). I think the figures are not great but there are many happy customers our there.

Anonymous

Corporations can and do acquire WM handsets all the time.

Anonymous

“ HTC and Samsung need to start pulling their weight and start making devices that other carriers would be interested in or GTFO!”

they will remember how Microsoft treated them and produce crappy phones in revenge mwahhhhhhhhhhhhhh !

http://twitter.com/laserfloyd Lewis McCrary

Growth is growth even if small. If it went from 1.4 to 1.3 I’d be very concerned. We have several devices and we have even more coming. We have Apollo and Windows 8 this year. It’s funny that people get so down about this stuff.
Anonymous

I said this many times but I will say it again customer satisifaction first marketshare will come overtime there is a chunk of marketshare Microsoft can take from Android even iOS not everybody with an iPhone wants to pay that preimum 199$ to upgrade to the next version. Why pay 199$ when you can buy a Nokia 710 for 49$ and still get great value!

Anonymous

The problem is Apple does have a basically free entry point (on contract) with the 3Gs (still a top seller) and for just a little more than a 710 you can get an iPhone 4 ($99). Nokia looks like it will have a good mix of price points, but not price points that will give them a clear advantage.

Anonymous

A 710 will outperform a 3GS and even a iPhone 4 to a certain extent unfortunatley it doesn’t have a FFC. So basically your paying 50$ for a FFC, HD space and obviouslly a better application marketplace. IMO Nokia 710 is still the best value phone out in the market for what it offers you can pay the 50$ to go with an iPhone 4 thats probably the second best option but from what I understand Apple doesn’t make 3GS’s anymore I didn’t know carriers still sold iPhone 3GS.

Nokia’s + MS marketing should point out that 710 is an amazing value for 50$ even a Samsung Focus for 50$ and it has a FFC.

I think alot of people are confussed with their low end options so they opt out to buy a iPhone 3GS since a Droid might look to confussing and non-user friendly to them a 710 is a very user friendly device as long as its marketed correctly it will sell and will bring up that marketshare a little bit.

I can see the 710 being 50$ for now but later on its probably going to drop down for free once newer Nokia handsets are annouced.

Anonymous

“but from what I understand Apple doesn’t make 3GS’s anymore”

They most certainly do still make the 3Gs, but since it is GSM only it’s only on AT&T’s network in the US (where it’s still a top seller).
Anonymous

to even compare a 3gs to a 710 shows your complete lack of knowledge, nt to mention tase.

Most people hide their wp7 phone as they are embarrassed they bought the wrong handset.

Anonymous

In my opininion I have great taste but your entitled to your opinion. So quit trolling me man if unless you provide me a good explanation why a comparing a 3GS to a 710 is a joke then maybe I will take you seriouslly.

But in my case I would rather have a Lumia 710 running Mango with no fragmentation rather than buying a 3GS trying to run iOS5 just not my cup of tea.

Anonymous

you remind me of the time ballmer was laughing at the $500 iphone………..

and you just dont get it either……………..

Lawrence of Arabia

1.2 Million split btw. Samsung, HTC, LG, and now Nokia. I don’t think they got what they invested(money) in developing their phones, specially LG.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_RSK4Z4DM6PNE6K3JIDAMURONCU Arun

Nielsen’s q3 report showed 1.2% market share for WP7……………so thats 16% rise. All windows phones were released in November. Lumia was not released in the US. Competition was tough during the holiday season. Galaxy Nexus, Note and iphone 4s all came out roughly during this period. How do you expect big market share?

Q1 2012 will belong to Windows Phone. The existing phones + 3 lumias and maybe one or two more phones against no new models by competitors. 1.7-1.8% should be easy.

http://fxfp.com/ Alex F.

I think Q2 will be major one for WP, not Q1 (remember, Lumia 900 is only released in March).

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_RSK4Z4DM6PNE6K3JIDAMURONCU Arun

Q2 will also be big for WP for sure. In q1 WP can take advantage of lack of new competitors.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Franco-Cencio/1665253874 Franco Cencio

American market is gone for WP and most Microsoft’s products… if it’s not cool, americans won’t buy it.
Anonymous

M$ should take some of that 100mil for marketing blitz and let people trade in blackberries, webos, and symbian devices for new WP7 devices.

Anonymous

Why would anyone want to downgrade their handset ?

Anonymous

Patience is a virtue
Anonymous

I think we can all declare WP7 a failure……………………
Anonymous

I can understand this low numbers.
Here in brazil, until the end of 2011 was easier to buy a slave from china than buy a WP7 device.
We have (NOW) only two devices officialy in our market.

It’s like the futurama image meme “SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!”.
Come on, Microsoft. You have fans, enthusiasts an WP7 lovers here waiting for your devices!
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jan-Kuyper/100001717386987 Jan Kuyper

http://www.windowsphoneapplist.com/en/stats/
was that not 50.000 around christmas
that will be 10.000 per month ?
Give it time ,and enjoy your phone ,after more then one year I still love the focus
What always surprises me is the vid clips you see of a brand new wp7 with the home screen straight out of the box .it’s about time they show a clip with a real homescreen used by real people .I have 22 tiles flipping around on the home screen I use almost every day and get a lot of ,now that’s a cool interface
As far as apps go….
one year ago with 7000 ms aps going against apples 400.000 ,it looked kinda stupid and about 57/1 ratio .now with almost 60.000 the ratio is 7/1
Give it another couple of months and the app difference becomes a “who cares ”