Is Microsoft too embarrassed to tell us about stalled WP7 sales?

Staska  By on 29 Apr 11

Things with  Windows Phone are  not  going so well for Microsoft.

Redmond software giant reported their quarterly results yesterday, and it seems they were so bad for WP7, that Microsoft is too embarrassed to tell us.

If you look back to last year – late in December Microsoft announced that 1.5 million WP7 devices were shipped by it’s OEM partners so far. Pretty good number for the first 7-8 weeks of an upstart platform. Then, a month later, they said that 2 million Windows Phone licenses were sold. Again, considering that Christmas was over, 500K units in one month did not seem so bad.

After that – silence. Microsoft stopped telling us anything about WP7 sales numbers. And started misdirecting our attention with meaningless figures like high customer satisfaction, number of people that downloaded WP app developer tools, number of AppHub community members, number of apps in the Marketplace, etc; Every positive number they could dredge up, except the key one to show how WP7 is really doing – number of licenses sold.

Well, if the actual WP7 sales are not too good, I can understand why Microsoft didn’t want to reveal them until they had to. But yesterday, in a quarterly results report,  was the time tell us at least a little bit about WP7. During earnings conference call, Microsoft went through the actual numbers from every other major company division. And here’s what they had to say about Windows Phone there:

Product reviews are good. Customer satisfaction is high, well above 90%. And we have shown a clear strategy for enabling a vibrant ecosystem around Windows Phone. This quarter, we took the next step and entered into a broad strategic alliance with Nokia. While we have enjoyed strong developer support to date with more than 13,000 applications, we’ve noted even greater developer interest subsequent to the Nokia alliance announcement.

That’s about it. The same meaningless misdirection stuff they’ve been spouting since February.

Well, I can not be 100% sure why they did it this way. But most likely – it’s because after the initial launch sales propelled by the huge marketing budgets, Windows Phone 7 sales stalled. And the number of WP7 devices sold in the last three moths was so low, that Microsoft is too embarrassed to tell us about it.

Granted, Q1 usually is a very slow quarter for consumer electronics, and unlike Apple and Android vendors, Microsoft didn’t have any presence in China to give them gift giving season sales boost.

Still, with the unfinished OS, uber slow update cycle and disappointed OEM partners – I don’t see anything that could improve Windows Phone 7 fortunes at least until Q4 of this year.

 

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  • Bateman

    Windows Phone 7 is a dead corpse. Microsoft has propped it up on the couch, and is trying to fool everyone that it is still alive. The only problem is, as time goes on, the Windows Phone 7 corpse starts to stink, and gets harder to hide.

  • DMAN

    If Microsoft isn’t manufacturing their own phones, they need to open up support for more hardware specs and drivers. Quite frankly, there seems to be a new top of the line Android device every 3 or 4 months and WP7s are still stuck using THAT standard spec?!? Windows supports so many different hardware and that’s why it won and dominates the desktops. Why not follow that successful model with their phones?

  • Anonymous

    Poor Nokia, they jumped from that “sinking platform” into a sinking boat! They should have gone with Android, would have given them more flexibility in terms of handset ranges. You need a wide range of devices and especially low-end phones if you want to continue in the emerging markets where Nokia has been strong in the past. I think it will be too late when they start to trickle out a few handsets at the end of the year.

  • Anonymous

    Poor Nokia, they jumped from that “sinking platform” into a sinking boat! They should have gone with Android, would have given them more flexibility in terms of handset ranges. You need a wide range of devices and especially low-end phones if you want to continue in the emerging markets where Nokia has been strong in the past. I think it will be too late when they start to trickle out a few handsets at the end of the year.

  • Anonymous

    They didn’t say how many Kinect actual sales to date too. Are you also insinuating that kinect sales were embarassing?

  • Anonymous

    In terms of Nokia and Microsoft, I think their merger will be a good synergy between two companies with complimentary strengths.
    http://www.wellnessstarts.com/bellaplex-wrinkle-reduction-prevention-review.html

  • Faiyaz

    Every one’s time comes; so will WP’s. WP will have its time under the sun. Nokia has huge following in markets like India. WP numbers will change when Nokia hits market and markets like India change its fortune.

  • Faiyaz

    Every one’s time comes; so will WP’s. WP will have its time under the sun. Nokia has huge following in markets like India. WP numbers will change when Nokia hits market and markets like India change its fortune.

  • Thing Adams

    Well if ya ain’t got the phones, ya ain’t got the sales……………

    Zune HD would have done well if made into a phone.

  • Anonymous

    Well if they’d hurry up and get a WP7 device on America’s largest carrier (Verizon), maybe they’d sell a few more. I’d sure like one. I love the UI of WP7.

  • http://twitter.com/creip Chris

    In all fairness, the Nokia announcement probably threw the WP7 crew a little off as well. Time and time again we’ve read about MS getting their WP7 machinery in Nokia into place. Maybe this is deferring them from focusing on sales.

    However its still pretty bad business to put profits as a second priority. Maybe we should look into sales numbers of manufacturers that sel WP7 devices and try to get a figure that way?

  • Gobbleygook

    Android sucks. I am much happier with WP7 platform. Not sure why all the negative press. Maybe people should use it before they post their ridiculous comments.

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