Windows Phone sales revenues and what the future holds for Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform. Here’s the news:
We all know the future lies in mobile. And big technology giants like Microsoft, Google and Apple are all trying their mighty best to ride on the current wave of mobile revolution and establish themselves as the future leader of mobile platforms.
While Apple is comfortably positioned, with its ‘closed’ iOS platform driving millions of hardware sales every month and Google is writing a different success story with Android’s “open” mobile platform becoming the top mobile platform across the globe, Microsoft has joined the party late with its totally re-worked Windows Phone platform.
And despite constant efforts by Microsoft to attract people to buy Windows Phone handsets, things haven’t worked well for MS so far. Sales have been disappointing, largely due to lack of an attractive and populated App market.
The recent quarterly result by Microsoft led some analysts to conclude that Windows Phone platform has performed abysmal so far, making only a little over $600Mn in revenues for Microsoft, while consuming much more money towards platform development, advertising expenses and related collaborations.
But still, Microsoft is very positive about the future prospects of Windows Phone and has released ‘Mango’ version of Windows Phone, the next big upgrade to WP platform, fixing all reported bugs and bringing aboard plenty of other features to the platform.
Windows Marketplace is also getting richer in apps, both from quantity and quality perspective. With the latest announcement by Nokia to pursue Windows Phone as their primary mobile platform for future smartphone developments, developer community has found a great deal of possibilities in Windows Phone platform.
Also, the recent acquisition of Skype by Microsoft will ensure that Windows Phone platform will soon have a tight and much attractive integration with the popular VoIP and video conferencing service in the days to come.
Android becoming more and more vulnerable to patent infringements and resulting in handset manufacturers pay royalty to Microsoft for every sale they make, is also a growing concern for mobile industry and could serve as a huge advantage for Microsoft to act as the safer ship for hardware manufacturers to sail on.
All in all, Microsoft has valid reasons to continue investing in its fresh and promising mobile platform and should not worry about short term losses they’re currently bearing.