Interesting Windows Phone stats where Nokia dominates - bad thing or a very bad thing?

[Gaichuke]

AdDuplex has published some stats regarding Windows Phone and they are somewhat disconcerting to read.

Look at them yourself:



http://winsupersite.com/windows-phone/interesting-windows-phone-stats


What is worrying here is the fact that Nokia seems to have already a 76% share of the WP platform. I don't think one manufacturer completely dominating the others can be good for the platform in the end. What is even worrying is that not even the new WP8 handsets from other manufacturers seem to change this order at all, HTC 8X is positioned at the 20th most popular WP device while Lumia 920 is already at the 6th place. For every HTC WP8 handset sold, Nokia sells four. Samsung is not counted because ATIV S is not yet sold anywhere, but I doubt it will change the dynamics of the three manufacturers much either.

What do you guys think?

 

[irvin792]

I think if the other OEMs were serious they would step up their customer service and also support their devices past launching them like Nokia does. I've owned a focus, titan, and now a 920. Nokia has a huge lead when it cones to supporting their products.

 

[Reflexx]

Other OEMs need to step it up.

Nokia is doing it right.

 

[inffy]

As previous posters have said, the problem lies in the other OEMs, not in Nokia.

For example, let's take Samsung and it's WP devices...it's a joke. Ok, joke maybe a little wrong or strong word to explain it, but let me try to explain my views on the problem, using Samsung as an example how things shouldn't have been done.

Samsung usually has a good hardware inside their phones (in Android atleast), and my first WP device was Omnia 7. It was really great and the build quality was awesome, compared to their Android counterparts (cheap plastic etc). I live in Europe and here, there were only Omnia 7 and LG Optimus 7 available if you were considering Windows Phone. After a while HTC brought the Titan to here too.

But for me, it seems Samsung isn't taking WP seriously. It seems it just a "hobby" to them (like AppleTV is for Apple, as they say). They are so deep in the Android ecosystem, and **** they are making great results with Android sales, so they have put their guns on Android, and WP has been left on the sideline. ATIV S is pretty good example. It was released as a first Windows Phone 8 device, just before Nokia, but after the release party....nothing. There has been almost no news or anykind of Marketing about the ATIV S. At first they said that the phone will come out in November, like other WP devices. After a while the release was pushed to december, and now it seems it won't be available at all this year, and will be released on january.

HTC is doing a little better in that part, they now have 8X and 8S available, and they are showing that they have more interest on the WP platform than Samsung. Of course, HTCs financial situation is not so good, as their income is declining all the time. But atleast it seems they have put their other gun on the WP and the other stays in Android.

And the problem...if these other OEMs (like ZTE/Huawei etc) don't step up, it's going to be bad thing for the WP. Nokia alone, can't make WP as attractive for the developers (the big developers) to spend their money/time/resources to the platform.

I really hope that WP8 will change this...the direction is right at the moment, and that is pretty much Nokias and a little bit of HTCs marketing that has helped. How it will transform in the future is another question, a really hard one. The few next months are going to be crucial to WP if it wants to stay alive and competetive.

 

[erzhik]

As others said, other OEMs have only themselves to blame. We can all agree that before Nokia came in, hardware on WP was boring with nothing to make them stand out. Nokia came in, threw a cyan color at Lumia 800/900 and all of a sudden other OEMs make colored phones. Now colored phones are a new trend. If anything, Nokia deserved the marketshare just with hardware alone..I am not even talking about exclusive apps.

 

[Gaichuke]

I guess it's not that hard to figure out in the end some possible reasons for Lumia 920 outselling 8X, even if the ratio is somewhat large four to one.

a) better hardware (even if not by much)
b) better software support
c) more aggressive pricing
d) possible supply problems of HTC

How much exactly these points contribute each is a much more harder question though.

 

[shinygerbil]

The pricing argument is null in many regions, don't forget. They may cost the same in the US - but here in the UK I'd have to pay an extra ?50 upfront AND ?5 a month for 24 months more for the contract to get a 920.

Nonetheless your point stands in what is obviously the biggest market by far

 

[inteller]

it is also obvious that Nokia's low end strategy is working. HTC never really made a low end phone unless you want to count the Radar (which I don't)

 

[SinisterDuck]

It's the marketplace. If Nokia didn't make phones people wanted, they wouldn't be selling so well. The consumer has choice, and they're choosing. That is not a bad thing -- that's how it should be.

 

[ncxcstud]

What does the graph look like for Android phones? I'd bet it'd be dominated by Samsung devices...

 

[FredW3]

The other manufactures haven't put thier best foot forward. On the WP8 front, HTC is offering the 8S to compete with the 920. But the 8S only has 8GB of memeory and no SD card slot (neither does the 920, but it has 32GB of memory). You can get around this using an SD card, which the 820 and HTC 8X have, but the 8X drops from a 1.5 GHz processor to 1.0. So basically, on paper, Nokia wins with the 920 and 820. Then you get to the device itself. Nokia has designed a phone that looks different. The 920 is not just another rectanle with rounded edges. I will give HTC the nod for a variety of colors, but the same goes for Nokia. The styling is a little different for the HTC phones than the majority of phones out there, but not as much as Nokia.

I am not saying the HTC phones aren't good, I just wish HTC would have upped some of the specs and tried to set it's styling apart more.

I am curious as to how this will look when the Samsung Ativ arrives. It has the specs of the 920, with an SD slot. On paper, it looks like the best WP 8 phone yet. But I don't see anything about the styling of the Ativ that really grabs me. Same old rounded corner rectangle.

 

[FredW3]

And besides that, the one hardware manufacturer/one platform model seems to do very well for Apple.

 

[Kebero]

I'll be honest here. I'd love if Nokia became the only WP OEM. Part of why Apple devices have been so solid is the tight control of hardware by the company. I think that , given lackluster commitment from other partners, moving the platform to a Surface brand powered by Nokia could be just the thing MS needs.

 

[Kebero]

@FredW3: you confused the 8X with the 8S.

 

[socialcarpet]

Other OEMs need to step it up.

Nokia is doing it right.

Precisely.

What is Nokia supposed to do? Not try as hard to make excellent phones and offer exclusive features and apps because HTC and Samsung are too busy sucking Android dick to bother putting a real effort into Windows Phone?

Please.

 

[Gaichuke]

Precisely.

What is Nokia supposed to do? Not try as hard to make excellent phones and offer exclusive features and apps because HTC and Samsung are too busy sucking Android dick to bother putting a real effort into Windows Phone?

Please.

I don't think Nokia has to do anything since they seem to be doing just fine. It is as you say, what could HTC and Samsung do to keep up?

 

[socialcarpet]

I don't think Nokia has to do anything since they seem to be doing just fine. It is as you say, what could HTC and Samsung do to keep up?

I think HTC has made a good initial effort with the 8X, since it's their first hardware that actually seems to be designed with Windows Phone in mind, instead of just another boring gray Android re-tread. What I think they should do is put more R&D into developing their own Windows Phone apps and buying some exclusives, like games and things that they will have a 3-6 month exclusive on the way Nokia does. That would be a good start. They also need to do a better job at resolving issues with their phones. God knows Nokia isn't perfect, but at least when they do have an issue, they are hyper-vigilant about getting it resolved.

 

[Coffee]

Keep a few things in mind on this chart/report:

1. Nokia's offerings came out prior to HTC's. While I fully expect Nokia to dominate the WP8 world, with their worldwide permeation, the HTC 8x didn't drop til later. It may have only been a week behind, but when the stats are for November, that's 3 weeks of sales vs. 2 weeks.

2. The chart uses data as follows:

Most of the stats in this report are based on a single day usage data from Windows Phone apps usingAdDuplex SDK. The day covered in this report is November 30th, 2012. Countries chart is based on the whole month of November and due to internal technical limitations reflects the number of impressions served to users (rather than users themselves). Device and OS related stats are collected from apps using v.2 of AdDuplex SDK. There were 136 of such apps at the time data was collected. All other stats are based on data from more than 2,000 apps on the AdDuplex network.

So this chart is limited to those apps using AdDuplex. Not that it's a bad result sample, but it may not be accurate of the overall picture.

I think it's normal that Nokia will dominate for quite a while, with higher and mid-range phones, soon some lower priced phones will come out and help them. As long as HTC and Samsung sell a decent amount, I don't think the Nokia share matters. What does matter is the WP8 share of total phones - if it can get over 10%, you might have players like LG coming back to manufacture.

 

[jmerrey]

I can't even imagine owning anything other than Nokia for a Windows Phone product at this moment. The best exclusive apps, accessories, support and service. Period.

 

[aubreyq]

...if it can get over 10%, you might have players like LG coming back to manufacture.

Nah, we don't want LG back, LOL.