Pyramid Research has just released a paper forecasting the smartphone operating market share through to 2015 based on Q1’s numbers. With Nokia’s involvement in Windows Phone, Pyramid sees Microsoft’s relatively new mobile OS beating out iPhone, BlackBerry, and even Android by as early as 2013. This is based on their research across worldwide markets, and as you can imagine, there are a lot of smaller markets that would be attracted to the low-costs handsets Nokia is able to produce.
This isn’t the first time we’ve heard such optimistic noise from researchers about the chances of Windows Phone. The Nokia partnership will definitely help them out, and having most of the other major cell phone manufacturers on board will ensure that the platform gets broad coverage. While it’s hard to imagine Windows Phone taking the top spot the way the market looks right now, I don’t think two years ago we would have guessed that Android would have such a substantial lead today.
What do you guys think? Microsoft has gone on the record and said it might take five years for the Windows Phone to fully mature, but in that time, will they be able to make the OS a reasonable competitor?
[via Pyramid]