Microsoft OS drops close to 0 percent share in most markets

Oct 16, 2017 04:31 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft itself acknowledged the death of Windows phones, saying that no new features and hardware would be developed for the platform, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that all users are jumping ship right away.

Obviously, sooner or later everyone would move to Android or iOS, and new statistics provided by Kantar for the three-month period ending August 2017 show this transition is happening at a faster pace.

Windows phones have lost significant market share in all major markets and it got very close to nearly 0 percent in several of them, mostly as a result of users going for other mobile platforms.

In the EU5 region, which has previously been the top market for Windows phones, the sales share dropped from 4.1 percent in the same period of 2016 to 1.2 percent this year, down no less than 2.9 percent. This is due to drop of 4.3 percent in the UK, 4.1 percent in France, 2.7 percent in Germany, and 2.6 percent in Italy. This translates to a share of 0.5 percent, 0.9 percent, 1.3 percent, and 2.3 percent, respectively.

Going down all over the world

Windows phones also dropped 1 percent in the United States where it’s still the choice of 1.3 percent of phone buyers, most likely enterprise, while in China, Microsoft’s mobile operating system is already extinct with 0 percent share.

In Australia, Windows 10 Mobile was picked by 0.5 percent of buyers during the said period, while in Japan, the platform dropped 0.2 percent from the previous year to 0.4 percent.

Overall, these figures don’t bring anything too surprising, as we’ve known for a while that Windows phones are MIA and sooner or later, they will all disappear.

Microsoft says the only market where it makes sense to continue using Windows phones is enterprise because otherwise, consumers have way too many expectations from its mobile platform at a time when this doesn’t have a single chance against Android or iOS.