Android/iOS Capture 96.4% Of Smartphone Market, Windows Phone Shrinks

[jpeyton]

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS25037214

Despite passing 300k apps mark, and some really high quality devices on the high- and low-end from Nokia, Windows Phone is struggling to take off. Shipments by market share and volume shrunk for Windows Phone.

Blackberry took a cliff dive, but that was expected.

iOS increased its share by volume, but market share shrunk. Android is at 85% of the global market and shipped an extra 65m units YOY.

I found the above graph interesting. When only looking at high-end devices, Android is pushing ~51.1m units vs. iOS's ~29.6m units. Ignoring the large-screen premium phone market is one major part of Job's legacy that Cook is trying to remedy.

 

[Lyfer]

Not surprised regarding Windows shrinkage. Just nothing appealing enough for people to jump ship.

 

[Strk]

As far as the US is concerned, it doesn't help that there are still way too many exclusives for WP8 phones. Their best phones keep getting restricted to specific carriers. The Icon is an awesome phone, but no way am I going to Verizon. AT&T at least has Cricket, so there is that route now, but it does still mean the phone is an exclusive to at&t.

There is also the whole playing nice with each other. I could be wrong, but last I knew you still can't use a lot of Google services on WP8.

 

[Red Storm]

Windows just can't win. Calling them 3rd place doesn't really mean much when that equates to less than 3% of the market. They have to get into double digits before I would separate them from the "others" group.

It amazes me how quickly and by how much Android continues to grow. The Android One program is only going to make things worse for other low end players.

I don't see Apple ever getting close to Android, but I think they feel comfortable where they are.

 

[vi edit]

Apple just banked about 8 billion in 3 months time. I'm not sure they are super worried. Some of this is like comparing 100 acres of ground in western Nebraska to 1 acre on Michigan Ave in downtown Chicago. One's worth a whole lot more money.

 

[bearxor]

Anyone else want to start the death clock on Windows Phone?

Microsoft Modern UI as a skin on top of AOSP within three years?

 

[vi edit]

As far as Windows phone...bleh. Until MS can get somebody with a half ass understanding of the mobile market, and the balls to whip departments in line and work together that's just going to end up being another Blackberry where they continue to flail about choking on any meager share they can grasp until eventually the lights go out in the division.

MS just can't get it's shit together with mobile and portable devices.

 

[Ravynmagi]

Well I'm not surprised Windows Phone lost market share. But I am surprised they also shrank in units shipped.

Windows Phone is a nice OS. I'm liking it. Unfortunately the app situation is still terrible compared to Android and iOS. So I hardly use my Nokia Icon, other than to admire how pretty it is.

Microsoft screwed up pretty big by making separate mobile OSes for phones and tablets. And having separate app markets for each. The new Universal apps is just a bandaid. The real solution is to combine the OSes and Microsoft is doing that, but it's not happening soon enough.

And of course there are other problems with Windows Phone 8 as well. You basically have just one manufacture making phones now, Nokia/Microsoft. HTC has a new Windows Phone coming, but it's not even a new phone, they are just slapping WP on an Android phone and calling it a day. It's a nice phone and nothing wrong with it. But it's just one phone, while HTC has made probably half a dozen other Android phones. Windows Phone is an afterthought for anyone other than Nokia.

And then you have the carrier exclusive deals. I can buy an Icon (basically a 930) only on Verizon, but I think that's the only Nokia on Verizon. T-Mobile has a Nokia 635. AT&T has the bigger Nokia phablet. They are all scattered and you can only get some phones on one carrier. Why has Nokia agreed to these ludicrous exclusivity deals with the carriers?

 

[bassoprofundo]

As far as the US is concerned, it doesn't help that there are still way too many exclusives for WP8 phones. Their best phones keep getting restricted to specific carriers. The Icon is an awesome phone, but no way am I going to Verizon. AT&T at least has Cricket, so there is that route now, but it does still mean the phone is an exclusive to at&t.

There is also the whole playing nice with each other. I could be wrong, but last I knew you still can't use a lot of Google services on WP8.

^^^This^^^

In the US, carrier store reps are a huge part of the issue, too. You not only have reps that actively push customers toward Android devices, you actually have them actively discouraging folks from buying a Windows Phone.

Full disclosure here that I work for a wirelss carrier (not in retail), but I've done some adhoc "experiments" with the Verizon and T-Mobile stores near where one of my kids takes music lessons. On multiple occasions, I walked into the stores and tried different tactics to get them to recommend a Windows Phone. Not once did they ever actually recommend a model. Not a single rep... not a single time. I tried all of the following tactics:

• My mom has an Android phone, and she has nothing but trouble - Tmobile recommended an iPhone, Verizon recommended several other Android phones ("She must have a cheap model")
• I've always had iPhones, and I'm bored with them. I definitely don't want one of those "Galaxy" things, though, and my LG TV sucks, so I don't want an LG. - Tmobile guy still tried to sell the iPhone ("You'll lose all your music and apps") but ended out pushing me toward an HTC One or Nexus 5. Verizon still showed me an S5 ("This one's way better than the past models") and then showed me the Moto X and HTC One
• I use Skydrive for all my files and want to listen to my Xbox music. - Tmobile showed me a Galaxy S5 and the iPhones ("Android and iOS have every app out there.") Verizon showed me the S5 and HTC one with the same reasoning. When I asked the Verizon guy about the Lumia Icon, he said "You don't want one of those. You won't be able to get any of the apps you want."
• I really like my Surface Pro tablet. What works the best with it? - Tmobile showed me the iPhone ("iTunes has an app for Windows too.") and an S5 ("You can even run the android apps on your Surface Pro through this Bluestacks program.") Verizon showed me the S5 and HTC One ("Android works with everything. You can just drag and drop files over if you connect it to USB or take out the memory card and put it in your PC.)

Ok. So this was hardly scientific, but even when I mentioned Microsoft services and a love for a Microsoft device, they still pushed me primarily toward Android and iOS. Verizon even discouraged me from getting their top-of-the-line flagship Windows Phone. Until this crap changes, market share in the US will not.

 

[Ravynmagi]

Anyone else want to start the death clock on Windows Phone?

Microsoft Modern UI as a skin on top of AOSP within three years?

I don't think we'll ever see Windows Phone abandoned for an Android skin. Windows Phone has been around in various incarnations for a long time. Maybe worst case scenario for Microsoft is they allow Android apps, but that didn't really help Blackberry, so probably not likely to happen either.

I think Microsoft has nearly hit bottom. But seems to now be doing things to improve the situation and mistakes they've made.

Windows Phone and Windows RT are being combined. This will mean a single app store across Windows PC, laptops, tablets, and phones. This will significantly increase the exposure of Windows app for phone users. And should hopefully bring more developer resources to Windows apps. And the quality and quantity of it's apps is probably the biggest barrier keeping people away. I think this will get Windows Phone moving forward again.

Perhaps now that Microsoft owns Nokia, they'll have more leverage to get better deals with the carriers and avoid these terrible exclusive arrangements they've been doing so far.

And Microsoft/Nokia really need to make a phablet with digitizer and pen. I can't believe this product doesn't exist. It's weird I have to use OneNote on my Android Note 3.

Maybe it hasn't made much of an impact yet. But I think Microsoft is doing a really good thing with these cheap Nokia 520/630 phones. I think this will pay off in time.

Intel is really focusing on competing against ARM. We have quite a few Android tablets running x86 processors now. Seems like we may not be far off from getting a good Intel processor for phones (I know Intel has had those Atoms for phones for years, but I hardly ever see any products with them, so assume they haven't been good SoCs so far), I'd love to see Microsoft make an x86 Windows Phone that could run desktop apps.

Windows Phone is a joke in the enterprise. How Microsoft managed to ignore this so long is baffling. But they are finally putting some focus on this area now.

Basically Microsoft is playing a LOT of catch up. They've been asleep at the wheel in regard to mobility for so long. But the seem to be doing the right things now and certainly still have the resources to close the gap eventually.

 

[vi edit]

Truth is that there is really zero interaction between windows phones and windows devices. There is no ecosystem. About the only real integration you'd get is photo synching to one drive from the windows phone camera roll. And that's it. Everything else can be done better or easier or the same on Android/iOS.

There's no point in pushing people to windows phone unless you want something brain dead simple to use. And even then iOS is still the better choice due to app store maturity, ecosystem and aftermarket accessory support.

 

[bearxor]

*snip*

Eight months ago, I'd agree with you. Now... Not so sure.

 

[Red Storm]

Basically Microsoft is playing a LOT of catch up. They've been asleep at the wheel in regard to mobility for so long. But the seem to be doing the right things now and certainly still have the resources to close the gap eventually.

Thing is we've been saying this ever since they launched Windows Phone OS. We keep saying they are making improvements and doing the right things, but then they shouldn't be losing marketshare if that were the case.

 

[mikeymikec]

IMO MS could carve out a respectable portion of the market by going for very easy and heavy customisability; it's the weak spot on both Android and iOS - UI skinning as far as it can be taken to the point where one can't tell what OS the phone is running (except by going into the options area), and made so easy that anyone who can handle a zip file and following a few instructions about naming conventions and simple configuration files could do if they were so inclined.

Android of course allows one to install different UIs, but those are programmed like any other app by developers with programming skills. The sort of customisation I mean would be something like theme or persona development in Firefox, and IMO would take advantage of previous crazes like the Nokia Xpress-on covers.

 

[Muyoso]

^^^This^^^

In the US, carrier store reps are a huge part of the issue, too. You not only have reps that actively push customers toward Android devices, you actually have them actively discouraging folks from buying a Windows Phone.

I think a huge part of this is that they are in the business of sales, and trying to sell a Windows Phone device to a person probably leads to more returns than if they sell an iPhone or Android device. Once a person gets a Windows Phone device home and then starts trying to load apps on it, its probably a shock. If these guys seriously thought that Windows Phone devices would be liked by their customers, they would recommend them, because they are in the business of making money and that is all that matters.

 

[vi edit]

My strategy for Windows Phone...

Kill Nokia and devour their tech and design.

Make a Surface phone with a class leading camera and the design scheme and quality of the surface products. Make it universal to all carriers like Apple and Samsung do. No exclusive crap.

Then figure out a way to nail down the security on the device and keep all of the IT and Exchange admins of the world happy.

Now also figure out a way to do some sort of nearfield pairing with it so that you have some sort of extension of your phones data signal, but make it tie into your one drive/office suite and extend it to a desktop or tablet version of Windows.

Here's where I'm going with this...

There's the traditional carrier hotspotting that goes on that is completely plan based and is widely abused by the data hogs for video/torrents/whatever.

I want a way to pair my laptop or Surface tablet seamlessly with my phone so that I can just pull out my laptop wherever and use my full exchange client on my desktop without needing to hook up to a wifi hotspot or tether to a to a phone using hotspots. I just want seemless pairing, an enterprise friendly use, and something that isn't a total data hog where I can get and send emails on a real desktop anywhere I want. I want to be able to get my work stuff that I've put out on One Drive available to me without needing wifi. Do it through the phone and beam it to the desktop. Let me use my enterprise Lync client to IM without needing wifi.

Heck I'd like to even be able to get phone call through a full headset hooked up to my laptop without even taking my phone out of my pocket or respond to text messages.

It'd be similar to what Motorola does with their Chrome extension and what Apple introduced with iOS 8 and the new versions of OSX.

Except I want it better and more business friendly.

If they want any meaningful market share, they have to make it worth owning. Right now other than being "different" it has nothing going for it. Aim it at the business world, pay off the carriers so that they ignore the concept of psuedo tethering and market the crap out of it being secure, reliable and business friendly. It's all lightweight text based data for the most part. Emails, text messages, voice over BT, ect. They shouldn't raise a stink over that.

Then you figure out a way to breath some life back into the cess pool they call an app store.

There's a mountain of road warriors out there that setup camp in airports daily. There's millions of business users that want a simple way to send emails or check up on work stuff. There's a market, there's just no compelling product for them to buy.

 

[Keysplayr]

Is it because there are like no apps for Mobile Windows in comparison to IOS and Android?

 

[NikolaeVarius]

Is it because there are like no apps for Mobile Windows in comparison to IOS and Android?

It's because there is no actual reason to use Windows phone over Android and iOS.

 

[bearxor]

Except I want it better and more business friendly.

I'm trying to figure out what you want about it that would be "better and more business friendly" than Apple's iOS 8 implementation.

Do you want it to bypass carriers check for tethering capability? That's not likely to happen.

Do you want it to work on Windows PC's? How many PC's come with NFC and BT4.0LE standard? Apple could probably do it with iPhones and Windows machines but they'd run in to the same issue as anyone else.

And Microsoft making a Surface phone and expecting to pair it with only a Surface tablet is way too niche. They wouldn't be able to make either device have enough broad appeal to make a distinctive dent in the marketplace.

 

[vi edit]

Apples iOS8 integration is for OSX devices. 90% of the "computer" market is still Windows. That includes work issued laptops.

I wouldn't make it Surface exclusive. Rather something baked into windows itself. But you are developing branding that exists and you give more versatility to your existing ultra portable full blow OS flagship.

There's room to work with the data part. Look at T Mobile and them excluding streaming audio from data caps. The data being pushed would be mostly business oriented and heavy on the text. That wouldn't amount to much. So if there was a way to do it and in a controlled way it's like you are trying to move a mountain there.

 

[bearxor]

Apples iOS8 integration is for OSX devices. 90% of the "computer" market is still Windows. That includes work issued laptops.

Ok, sooo...

Do you want it to work on Windows PC's? How many PC's come with NFC and BT4.0LE standard? Apple could probably do it with iPhones and Windows machines but they'd run in to the same issue as anyone else.

In this day and age do you really expect a company to spend $50 per machine to get NFC or Bluetooth 4 on it as opposed to just telling someone to plug their phone in to their USB port to use tethering?

I mean, I can appreciate the vision I just don't think it's a viable idea on the Windows side at this point. Makes perfect sense for Apple since they control the laptop hardware as well.

 

[bassoprofundo]

I think a huge part of this is that they are in the business of sales, and trying to sell a Windows Phone device to a person probably leads to more returns than if they sell an iPhone or Android device. Once a person gets a Windows Phone device home and then starts trying to load apps on it, its probably a shock. If these guys seriously thought that Windows Phone devices would be liked by their customers, they would recommend them, because they are in the business of making money and that is all that matters.

It's about ARPU (average revenue per user), plain and simple. Data usage per user is highest on Android devices, and the carriers have carte blanche in terms of "customization" (i.e.- crapware) on them so they can hock more of their own services. They'll indeed push what makes them the most money, but that has relatively little to do with what users like.

 

[Ravynmagi]

Thing is we've been saying this ever since they launched Windows Phone OS. We keep saying they are making improvements and doing the right things, but then they shouldn't be losing marketshare if that were the case.

And things have improved significantly. That is why I'm a little surprised their units shipped has gone down. But unfortunately the app situation is still poor and I don't think Microsoft has yet to address one of the big reasons why that might be the case, the dual operating systems and app stores. Hopefully once that's merged together, developers might give Windows a bit more time.

 

[bassoprofundo]

It's because there is no actual reason to use Windows phone over Android and iOS.

This only partially true. There are plenty of reasons to use WP over the others, but it could be said that there is no compelling enough reason for people to switch to WP from iOS or Android.

The UI, the hardware design, and the best-in-class cameras were what won me over. Those were pretty compelling to me.

 

[TuxDave]

It's because there is no actual reason to use Windows phone over Android and iOS.

I guess it depends on the user. I know at most 2 Windows phone users (1 is first time smartphone user, the other was ex-Android user). Both of them like it so much that they're staying with it.