

Microsoft sells 1.6 million Windows Phone 7 devices in Q1 - rbanffy
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/microsoft-sells-16-million-windows-phone-7-devices-in-q1/49022

======
modernerd
Today I asked a salesman in a big high street phone store in the UK if they
were selling many Windows Phone 7 phones:

"We sell a few a day," he said. "People don't come in and ask to buy one like
they do with the iPhone, of course, but a handful of folks walk out with one
anyway."

I asked him why he thought they went for a WP7 phone instead of an Android or
iOS device:

"Honestly, a lot of them are just looking for a phone to make phone calls;
they don't seem to care about the operating system. I guess you could say that
they buy them by accident."

~~~
kenjackson
_I asked him why he thought they went for a WP7 phone instead of an Android or
iOS device:

"Honestly, a lot of them are just looking for a phone to make phone calls;
they don't seem to care about the operating system. I guess you could say that
they buy them by accident."_

That may be the case in the UK, but in the US it's not very likely. Most are
tied to dataplans (at least to get the subsidized cost). They'd be steered to
feature phones if they just wanted phone calls, except by possibly the least
ethical salespeople.

I suspect its probably more that they don't keep up with this stuff on daily
basis like us. Android, iPhone, Windows -- to them Windows is as popular as
those other two brands. And then after playing with the phone some of these
people walk out with it. Others Android, others iPhone.

~~~
Steko
US salespeople aren't steering anyone to feature phones -- they are directed
to pitch everything a smartphone can do to sell those lucrative data plans.
This does not make them unethical, that's how sales works in every industry.

~~~
barrkel
See, enlightened self-interest works against that principle. If you've got a
self-interest time horizon longer than 10 minutes, you'll see that it makes
more sense to sell the customer something he or she won't regret buying any
time soon, or you won't get repeat business and word of mouth. There may be a
little bit of oversell, but with the calculated aim of the customer growing
into the oversold features.

If, on the other hand, you sell mainly to passing traffic and/or tourists, or
from a temporary stall, then you genuinely don't have an incentive to hold
back.

------
kefs
Reading this, it appears that they sold more Windows Mobile (6.x) devices than
Windows Phone 7 devices.

3.6M total sold in Q1, 1.6M of which was WP7.

~~~
csomar
This shows actually that people buys the unit and not the Operating System.
They'll walk to a shop, try a HTC phone, like it and buy it.

~~~
Steko
I think some buy the unit after playing with a number of them, some buy
brands, some buy the platform/OS (which overlaps brand for half the market)
and some just buy whatever the salesguy pushes on them.

------
afsina
So, does that mean more Android phones are sold in just 5 days? (Edited
grammar.)

~~~
r00fus
> so android phones sell more in just 5 days?

No, Android _devices_ _activate_ more in 5 days. Still not clear to me what
"activation" means. These two measures aren't directly comparable:
[http://www.simplemobilereview.com/what-does-apple-mean-by-
de...](http://www.simplemobilereview.com/what-does-apple-mean-by-device-
activation/)

That said, Microsoft still selling more WinMo devices than WP7 is a telling
sign of their poor mobile strategy.

~~~
kenjackson
_That said, Microsoft still selling more WinMo devices than WP7 is a telling
sign of their poor mobile strategy._

I'm unclear how they're related? Windows Mobile is targeted at the enterprise
while WP7 isn't. The relative performance doesn't really say much.

WP7's numbers vs Android/iOS are telling of their mobile strategy, but not
their numbers vs WM6.x.

------
Gunther
I think it will be more interesting/telling to see the numbers that Microsoft
post after Nokia begins to ship phones with WP7 on them. While WP7 is not a
popular choice right now, the Nokia partnership definitely makes it
interesting to watch. I am especially curious to see how Nokia leverages the
WP7 platform in countries outside of the US because of Nokia's global market
share and marketing.

~~~
erikpukinskis
I'm interested too. Nokia hasn't been able to sell many Maemo phones, I'm not
sure how having Windows Phone 7 would really improve that. They seem really
good at selling cheap phones, but not smartphones. Maybe with Microsoft's
marketing muscle they'll do better.

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raganwald
It says "to end users." Do they mean actual buyers in the store forking over
cash? It looks to me like Gartner may be estimating this number given their
comments about estimating retail inventory a few paragraphs down.

I'd really like to read the original, I am not sure how solid this number is.

~~~
potatolicious
Odds are the two numbers are highly correlated - consumer electronics
depreciate _fast_ and nobody likes to keep inventory around longer than
absolutely necessary.

Unless MS is pulling some _really_ sketchy shenanigans stuffing the channels
full of WP7 phones that won't sell (that retailers will push back hard
against), "shipping to stores" is a not-terrible approximation of "sold to end
users".

------
mckoss
Android activates 400,000 phones PER DAY! beating Microsofts numbers for the
quarter in just 4 days.

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nextparadigms
The sales of WP7 phones seem to be declining.

~~~
kenjackson
You usually need at least two data points to show a decline. AFAIK these are
the first numbers we've seen of actual sales to consumers.

