According to data released by Adduplex, newer Windows Phone devices continue to struggle with sales while older models dominate overall market share for the operating system.
AdDuplex is a cross-promotion network specifically targeted at Windows Phone and Windows Store apps and games. Every month the website releases statistics about the mobile operating system and it’s performance… often with quite depressing results.
The latest stats show that Microsoft is still struggling to get adopters on board with their new 5-series handsets, as the older devices pretty much control overall market share. The Lumia 520 is still the most popular Windows Phone handset despite releasing way back in April 2013, with 12.2%. This is followed by yet another old budget handset, the Lumia 535, which has 11.7%. No newer devices are listed on the chart, with the ‘other’ section incorporating the rest of the handsets and accounting for 32.7% overall. This means that older devices make up 67.3% of the overall Windows Phone ecosystem, painting a pretty bleak picture for their handset business going forward.
This is further solidified by the adoption rates for Windows 10 Mobile, which show that only 22.8% of devices are running the operating system native. The majority of users seem to be upgrading to Windows 10 Mobile from Windows Phone 8.1, meaning that this is happening mainly on older handsets that don’t ship with the OS out of the box. Worldwide stats for OS usage show that Windows 10 Mobile only has 10.4% of the share, while Windows Phone 8.1 is still commanding over half the market at 78.8%.
Why are users not upgrading to new handsets? The app store is probably the main culprit to blame, with a lack of killer applications despite hitting the 700k mark at the end of last year. The synergy of both desktop and mobile app stores has helped improve the situation but the company is still pushing for more universal applications as it looks to expand its portfolio going forward. Let’s not also forget that despite being pretty good handsets, the Lumia 950 and 950XL failed to live up to expectations, with mixed critic response and a general feeling that the new Windows 10 Mobile operating system felt incomplete when compared to Android and iOS.
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