According to the latest report from IDC, Windows Phone is losing out on the race against iOS and Android as its market share has dipped from a year ago. The report also points out that the operating system is likely to face slow growth in the near future.
The report indicated that while Windows Mobile had a share market share of 2.6% of the total smartphones shipped in the first quarter of 2011, it has a market share of only 2.2% in the first quarter of 2012. iOS, on the other hand, had a market share of 18.3% in the first quarter and grew nearly twofold to have a market share of 35.1% in the first quarter of 2012. Android also saw similar growth as its market share grew from 36% in the first quarter of 2011 to 59% of the market in the first quarter of 2012. However, BlackBerry and Symbian suffered sharp declines in market share as BlackBerry’s market share fell from 13.6% to 6.4% and Symbian’s from 26% to 6.8%.
The actual sales figures of Windows Phone have seen a slight increase and have reached 3.3 million units for the first quarter of 2012 compared to 2.6 million units sold in the first quarter of 2011, despite the dip in market share. This is an increase of 26.9% or 700,000 units, which is comparatively sluggish when compared to the overall growth rate of the smartphone market which has risen by 49.9% in the number of smartphones shipped in the first quarter of 2012 as opposed to the same period in 2011.
iOS saw an increase of about 88.7% as sales grew from 18.6 million to 35.1 million in the same period where as the sales of Android devices saw an increase of 145% or an increase of 53.2 million units as they reached 89.9 million from 36.7 million from last year. Though Windows Phone has nowhere near the shipment volumes compared to iOS and Android, it has still been received quite positively in most markets where it is available.
The results from IDC are concurrent from the results released by Gartner which found that the market share of the Microsoft smartphones is now at 1.9% worldwide as opposed to 2.6% a year ago. One bright spot for the Windows Phone is China where it has managed to outperform Apple’s iPhone in terms of market share.
