Microsoft’s Greg Sullivan told Bloomberg and others today that the software giant shipped 2 million units of the Windows Phone 7 OS in the previous quarter. A little over a month ago, and about a week before the end of the quarter, the company said it had shipped 1.5 million units.
2 million is good, but compared to the 300,000 Android handset activations that Google sees every day, or the 180,000 Apple claims, you don’t have to be a math whiz to understand the gulf between the two platforms.
With that in mind, Sullivan was instead touting a more positive number: “One of the key ways that we’ll measure success of Windows Phone is did we ship a phone people love,” Sullivan said. And according to its customer satisfaction data, 93 percent of early customers are “satisfied” or “very satisfied.” A similar claim was made a few weeks back at CES.
There’s even a happy AT&T quote to accompany this story: “We believe this shows that Windows Phone has a bright future in an intensively competitive space,” an AT&T representative said.
Some other figures: There are now more than 6,500 apps in Windows Phone Marketplace and there are more than 24,000 registered developers in the Windows Phone developer program. These numbers compare to what was announced at CES–5,000 and 20,0000, respectively.
Sullivan: Two previously announced updates will be released “in the next few months.” (Sigh.)
(And Before any rocket scientist tries to claim that that Facebook estimate about Windows Phone sales was somehow correct, please don’t bother. That is not an accurate way to measure anything. It’s like comparing apples and apes.)
If this again is the number of phones shipped to carriers it is worthless.
It’s worth 2 million in sales to Microsoft, hardly worthless. I wonder how much they make per unit? I’m betting it’s pretty good.
And how many of those carriers will renew their orders in case they are sitting on huge pile of inventory?
I don’t see anything worthless about it.
Carriers would not be ordering Windows Phone 7 from Microsoft, if they weren’t selling phones based upon the OS. The assertion that phone manufacturers/carriers are buying the OS, but then keeping the phones in stock doesn’t make sense; they don’t make money off phones sitting in stock, instead they would become a liability and there wouldn’t any more orders.
“in the next few months” = okay, let’s say for this year… Can’t wait. My guess is that they will deliver a bigger update than the “copy-paste” one. Hope we’ll have a nice surprise from them.
So where’s the satisfaction survey about communication and updates? I don’t imagine they’d do so well on that one. “in the next few months” is a far cry from “January 2011″. I’m glad that the sales are doing reasonably well according to MS, but if they don’t start making some major progress in the realm of updates, they’re really not going to succeed. Their lack of communication and any signs of releasing an update shows their current customers that they’re not really serious about listening to their customers or improving the product.
I can only hope that this is all because they’re ironing out the update issues so it’s flawless and future updates will release on a much more expedited schedule.
My wife and me use Samsung Focus WP7, and we are pretty happy with the phones.
Speaking frankly, all the griping about missing updates is starting to get a little old, and is now damaging the reputation of the platform, all for what are basically minor issues. The reality is that WP7 is really nice and functional for a version 1 system.
Yes, it needs the major bugs fixed, but there isn’t really a show killer, even though all the complaining makes it look like an ongoing disaster. “The camera won’t keep it’s settings!” No it doesn’t, but they will probably change that soon enough. “The marketplace has issues that need to be fixed!” Yes it does… but it is not a fatal error.
Let’s talk about the good things for a while! Talk about how you can spend 5 minutes showing it to an iPhone user, and they will start to show envy. How good the Zune piece is. How the homepage is so well thought out, how there are some REALLY good apps…
Microsoft is being utterly stupid by holding back on minor tweaks, but the complaining is now becoming counterproductive, since it is obvious that Microsoft has absolutely no regard or respect for user feedback in this matter, and will do whatever it feels like doing.
The lack of news directly from Microsoft is very frustrating… and yes Paul, I agree with you about the ‘official’ WP7 podcast… it makes me think that the WP7 program is being run by teenagers on skateboards that can’t put together a coherent sentence and are unlikely to finish high school. Thanks Paul for providing a “grown up” podcast about WP7!
Amen. Well said
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Sales will certainly pick up once WP7 goes to Verizon and Sprint, which should also coincide with Microsoft addressing some of the platforms major deficiencies. If that plays out, it would appear that they’re probably on pace to do somewhere around 15 million units within a year of launch. It’s not blockbuster numbers, but it’s around the same as what the iPad sold (everyone seems to be freaking out about what a success the iPad is).
They don’t need to out-sell the iPhone or Android for the platform to be successful – they just need to reach a critical-mass to keep developers happy, and to keep handset makers interested in making phones. I think they will. Over time, I expect handset makers to shift heavily in favor of WP7, because eventually the Android-related lawsuits, coupled with the costs of maintaining a different version of Android for each phone they release, will prove too costly in the low-margin game of hardware sales.
To understimate the value of the 2 million or any million dollar mark as far as WP7 is concerned is short sighted. Apple has had one eco-system which has taken hold, arguably Android is not but a clone of the Apple system. The uphill battle for Microsoft to come in after Windows Mobile to re-introduce itself as Windows Phone in an age where mind space is limited and often already overwhelmed is no short task. Within certain restrains those WP7 sold are WP7 believers and pioneers all over again.
Take for example that many customer are in contracts and its as they end the contract that they get a new one. Which phone to chose well why not Apple its all over the news? Well sir this is T-Mobile and we don’t carry Apple phones but how about this nice Android Apple Clone(thinking about it they should have been called Clones not Droids) ?
So I think its important for everybody to understand that comparing a V.1 to a V.3 or 4 is not playing nice and unfair. To say that MS is an underdog with a long way to go sure, but like there are of those that believed in Apple when Apple used to be in financial near death and MS invested in them, there are those that believe in Android, and are there of those that believe in Microsoft and Windows Phone.
Well said.
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“In the next few months.” Windows Phone 7… it’s the greatest smartphone you can’t buy.
The “Facebook” method is more like counting the number of apples in an orchard, and using the count to estimate the number of apes in a preserve in Africa
I was on the bus the other day with a guy who had a new Samsung Focus … I watched him as he deleted the Facebook app … not everyone uses Facebook I guess (I do).
A thing then I find interesting when comparing the current generation of smart phone OS market share, is when it come to revenue they aren’t really comparable.
For 2 million phones Apple makes >1billion dollars in revenue and probably >200M dollars in profit. Google makes zero dollars for 2 million androids an Microsoft makes ?? more than Google and a lot less the Apple. Of course Google makes here in other ways besides selling and Microsoft also. But Apple also makes money besides selling them and even if Google and Microsoft sell 10x more then Apple in the future, Apple still makes more money.
Excuse me? for 2 million phones to make $1 billion dollars you seem to be under the illusion that the iPhone (all of its versions) are priced at $1000? Well my HTC HD7 Windows Phone (in the UK) cost me $1546.66, multiplying that figure by 2 million (number of products sold) and you get over $3 billion dollars (Windows will take a third of that for the operating system with networks and phone manufactures next), tell me how did you arrive at an imaginary figure lower than a billion?
I’ll just take this opportunity to ignore this post and groan about our update NOT coming in January now? Next few MONTHS now?
Oh yea, 2 million cool for now. Wanna make it 10 million fast without doing anything that the other phones can’t already do? How about a really dumb commercial where the same hot chick (in different scenarios of course) shows exactly how many different ways you can use the Bing search, but then actually SHOWS us on screen how it works. Then the moron patrol of consumers will actually “think” that only WinPh7 can do that, kind of like they do with IPHONES, when they do stuff.
JF
I also wish that they had just identified us all as the beta testers we are till the actual phone comes out. I’m traveling with my phone now for a few months and here is what my scenario is.
1. periodically take my sim card out and stick it in my HD2 so I can tether.
2. periodically pickup my HD2 so I can see all of my contacts instead of just 1,000. (yeah I must be a cool GEEK if I have over 1,000 eh?)
3. Groan when i try and use my bluetooth headset to dial a number, get my next appointment, or try to simply “show” some contact info, only to realize that I forgot that my NEW phone can’t do any of the stuff that my OLD phone can do.
4. sigh every time I’m told an update is coming soon, only to find out that soon means MONTHS, if not half years.
Other than that I’m happy (seriously happy with it) . As a beta tester however I think I should get a free copy of MS office.
JF
Nokia is going to board the ship:
http://mobilized.allthingsd.com/20110127/nokia-ceo-elop-lays-groundwork-for-new-strategy-to-be-announced-next-month/
Although Elop didn’t name any names, he did talk about the need for the company to “build or join a competitive ecosystem,” suggesting that it might be open to shifting to a competing platform.
Symbian is dead and Open Source MeeGo is not the real solution. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MeeGo)
So, they have only two options: Android and Windows Phone 7. They’ve made some comparison table, for sure. What is the first and heaviest line in that table? I guess the ecosystem and its perceived perspective.
Would you bet on Android Market or Windows Marketplace+Zune?
I have had my Samsung Omnia 7 now for 2 weeks and are really happy with it. The big issue for me isn’t a missing update. Yes there are minor issues and things that could be nice to have but the biggest problem is that I live in Scandinavia and haven’t access to Marketplace or Xbox live. This means that I’m only able to use the phone as a “normal” phone and not as a “Smart” phone.
There are no info from MS about when we get access to Marketplace, only a rumour that says 3 months.
I’m also a developer and would like to transfer apps I have made to my phone but I’m not allowed to do that without a developer license which I can’t get…
So I think the priority here is Marketplace/Xbox live and thereafter updates.
The market place is really nice and the apps rival or beat anything out there, especially with the Metro interface. You won’t be dissappointed. Until it bombs out and you have to pull the battery on your phone. Pretty sure they are going to fix that in the update of 2014. I have only had to pull the batter about 4 times in 3 months, can’t really complain too much, and NO hard resets. ZERO.
You had to pull the battery? I’ve only had the marketplace lock up on me twice and in both occurrences turning it off and then back on using only the power button solved the issue.
The Windows Phone 7 is something I have fallen in love with. It really does come to life on a HTC HD7, the size may be something that people will look at and couldn’t imagine carrying round in their pockets, but almost tablet like: the huge HD7 screen makes everything on other platforms of the phone just better, the camera is more effective; internet browsing is just truly magnificent when you can fit more onto your phone screen in readable format than on a 17 inch monitor (due to monitors bieng ‘wider’ and more of a landscape). The Kick stand is something which isn’t just for show; it actually works!!!
What did it for me though was Zune, as a huge technology tracker once I had read about it I imagined a “marketplace/music player and storage” program impossible to topple iTunes, never mind run a very similar experience on a phone. When though I experienced it I was in awe. To cut a long story short my iPod touch is now at the bottom of one of my drawers, needs charging up and iTunes has been removed from my PC.
There are serveral tweaks, but that was the same on the iPone on its first release, too many critics and apple fans dubbed the Windows Phone as too much in a users face and really messy, but once you start using it, although it appears messy everything is how it is for a reason. The main reason Apple fans and critics dub the Windows Phone 7 is truly because they are scared of the potential, this is probably the first phone (since the HTC desire) to really challenge the iPhone, although it won’t be considered a real challenger until another few years Microsoft have put a stumbling block in Apple’s headquarters.
The Iphone is only available on the same platform of phone: Apple’s own invention, whereas Microsoft’s Windows Phone can be ran on many platform with most phone networks biting microsofts hand off to use the OS interface, if the experts; the makers of moblile phones, are paying micorosoft to have this interface surely they see the future. Another threat to the iPhone is the Games hub, labelled Xbox Live; argubly one of Microsofts greatest achievements in the past decade: connecting many gamers worldwide throughout their console and although Sony’s and Nintendo’s offer similar experiences: because you are not charged (unlike for Xbox live) you cannot fufil the great potential. Bringing this experience to the Windows Phone is something most people overlook: Should you link your Xbox live account to your phone you will be able to send free messages to your freinds, see who is online without even using your Xbox and on the go. The final threat is the applications: when the iPhone was released to begin with there was only 2 types of apps: games, and needless apps that users downloaded and used simply because “they can” without ever actually using the app for the purpose it was designed for, it has taken a few years to move on from that stage where Apps are now more user effiecent. Microsoft and Zune however, hit the ground running with their apps, each has its own purpose and if you download it: its because you want to use it for that purpose.
The first 2 years of the launch of the Windows Phone 7 is bound to show glitches, and be behind on apps with google and Apple, and maybe behind on sales: But just like the Iphone, it was ignored on its first impact with the earth’s atmosphere, then before you know it: it will already be a part of our life, a life of windows: a life without walls…