After many weeks of speculation, Microsoft has finally revealed the sale numbers of their Windows Phone 7 smartphone which has been heavily promoted by carriers online as well as off.
They also were able to confirm how much developers are in love with Windows Phone 7 as one can tell by the size of their app marketplace.
What we see as well is that people like the new design and the different approach that we’ve taken. On the developer side, our tools are really good and leverage the skills they already have. Developers are validating that the tools make it easy to make great apps and games quickly – we have more than 4,000 apps in our marketplace. With more pouring in daily, this is an enviable pace for any new platform. […]
Another is phone manufacturer sales – phones being bought and stocked by mobile operators and retailers on their way to customers. We are pleased that phone manufacturers sold over 1.5 million phones in the first six weeks, which helps build customer momentum and retail presence. (Microsoft News Center)
Note: Emphasis mine.
Windows Phone 7’s app store numbers are impressive, especially considering the fact that they are competing for the attention of developers, most who have limited time and resources to dedicate towards mobile platforms.
Although Microsoft still has a long ways to go before they will catch up to iOS and Android, they should easily surpass Blackberry by next year (which isn’t good news for RIM).
As far as their sale numbers go, I have to agree with RWW that sales to manufacturers do not equal consumer sales, which means that this figure at best is a little misleading.
A far better measurment would be activations, which both Google and Apple are using to determine adoption rate for Android as well as iOS devices, respectively.
Activation amounts aside, the fact that Microsoft has actually convinced carriers to buy over a million Windows Phone 7 devices is impressive nonetheless.
Originally posted on December 21, 2010 @ 1:24 pm