Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 OS is showing increased market share in the smartphone market, despite the domination of the smartphone market by OS’s such as Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. According to Kantar Worldpanel, Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 OS accounted for 5.6% of smartphone sales in Q1 2013, which showed a growth rate of 1.9% compared to figures from the previous year. Windows Phone 8 growth has risen in European markets, mostly capturing customers who have never purchased a smartphone.
“As iOS and Android continue to battle it out for top-selling smartphone OS, we have seen Windows steadily grow over the past year and is now at its highest sales share figure so far.” Kantar Worldpanel ComTech analyst Mary-Ann Parlato stated, “Windows strength appears to be the ability to attract first time smartphone buyers, upgrading from a feature phone. Of those who changed their phone over the last year to a Windows smartphone, 52% had previously owned a feature phone. Comparatively, the majority of iOS and Android new customers were repeat smartphone buyers, with 55% of new iOS customers, and 51% of new Android customers coming from another smartphone. While the differences between these figures are small, with over half of the US market still owning a feature phone, it’s likely that many will upgrade over the coming year, which will ultimately contribute to more growth for the Windows brand.”
Android has almost half of the smartphone sales in Q1 2013, with 49.3% of sales. Those numbers are nothing but amazing, but Google’s growth rate increased compared to the previous year, up by 1.4%. Apple’s iOS is in second place, with 43.7% of smartphone sales, which are down compared to the previous year’s 44.6%.
It’s clear that Android and iOS aren’t going anywhere, but Windows is showing promising growth in the smartphone market, ane may just keep making modest gains as the mobile operating system evolves. It’s popularity with first time smartphone buyers could be key to its success in emerging markets, and a bigger app ecosystem would help the Windows 8 platform in the U.S. Don’t count Microsoft out just yet.
[Via: Kantar World Panel , BGR]