Should MS concentrate on Europe for Windows Phone and forget the US?

Chris Sandiford

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I recently made some comments in the 8.1 Poll story on the main page and in doing so did some research to back up my point.

The results were quite startling.

The US may be a big country but it ranks 13 out of 15 in the world for smartphone ownership. No 1 is the UAE (Source: The 15 Countries With the Highest Smartphone Pentration)

European smartphone ownership Feb 14: 176 million handsets (UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, France - the top 5 European smartphone nations) - source: www.comscoredatamine
Population = 257 million ie. 68% of Europe owns a smartphone

US smartphone ownership Nov 13: 148 million handsets - source: Analytics for a Digital World - comScore, Inc.
Population = 313 million ie. 47% of the US own a smartphone

Now apply the WP8 market share (source: http://uk.kantar.com/tech/mobile/kantarworldpanel-comtech-smartphone-os-market-share/)

9.2% of 176 million = 16 million WP8 handsets in Europe

5.4% of 148 million = 8 million WP8 handsets in the US

Hell, there are 44 million smartphone handsets in the UK alone (source: www.portioresearch.com) in a population of 63 million.
And with 10.1% WP8 share this means there are still 4.4 million WP8 handsets in the UK vs the 8 million in the US - a country five times its population.

Just because the US is the home of MS shouldn't give them a precedent in their Cortanas and launches and Binginess. If the majority of US is too dumb to adopt, MS should go where the customer base is - maybe move next door to Nokia in Espoo.

I took the data from the sources quoted who classed "Europe" as those top 5 European countries based on smartphone purchases. I wasn't really looking at the language aspect ie. Cortana launch, moreover pointing out the woeful takeup of WP in its home country. Clearly as things stand, Cortana couldn't be launched into Europe first without a focus shift.

Rolls Royces are still hand made in Britain yet we can't afford them... a massive percentage of their market share is in Asia and the Middle East. Rolls therefore launch new models there, listen to the desires and suggestions of their dealerships there, host massive media circuses there and generally give credence to a whole export market where the sales will be. They even made a special edition model just for Dubai, based on customer requests - this from a Channel 4 documentary on the company last month.

Cortana aside (based on language differences) you can't really argue the facts. The US is slow to adopt and MS should invest where the real money and interest is.
 

anon(5335899)

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You are missing the point and basically interpret the number the wrong way around. You need to look at to whom you can possibly sell a smartphone, not who has one. Those number come up more or less the same for US and EU.
 
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But don't most of their sales for all their products come mostly from the us first and foremost...

It makes sense that the us company puts most of their focus in their home nation but they really should expand to at least other countries.
 

Chris Sandiford

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You are missing the point and basically interpret the number the wrong way around. You need to look at to whom you can possibly sell a smartphone, not who has one. Those number come up more or less the same for US and EU.
And where is this data you've invented? I'm not missing any point. Italy has grown massively in its WP users the last few years for example - the facts are there.
You can't deny a 100% greater usage in Europe than in the US.
 

Sport Driver

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Should they forget US: NO, it is to important market
Should they put more effort in EU: YES
I live in small country Slovenia and I'm not expecting Cortana in Slovene language BUT, if i want to buy a Microsoft Surface I can't. It is not available in our country and I'm not talking about Microsoft store, you simply can' buy it anywhere. I would have to buy it in Austria or Germany but there we have problem with warrenty. So puting more effort in EU would help.

Sent from my Nokia Lumia 820 using Tapatalk
 

marratj

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I would have to buy it in Austria or Germany but there we have problem with warrenty.

But Slovenia is part of the EU and therefor the warranty needs to be accepted EU wide. So if you buy it in Austria and it has a defect, you can always send it to the seller in Austria and he/she needs to give you the warranty.
 

Chris Sandiford

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Should they forget US: NO, it is to important market
Should they put more effort in EU: YES
I live in small country Slovenia and I'm not expecting Cortana in Slovene language BUT, if i want to buy a Microsoft Surface I can't. It is not available in our country and I'm not talking about Microsoft store, you simply can' buy it anywhere. I would have to buy it in Austria or Germany but there we have problem with warrenty. So puting more effort in EU would help.

Sent from my Nokia Lumia 820 using Tapatalk
That's what I'm saying - don't forget the US, just flip everything on its head.
Give the interested parties the goodies first.
 

prasath1234

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Ms should somehow make Apple users switch to their ecosystems then suddenly all developers nd rest of the world follow.so they should concentrate on us first where there is each nd every person buying flagship on contract so that it gets all the money.

Sent from my C2305 using WPCentral Forums mobile app
 

Soulstream

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Not being from the US I don't really get why the US market is like "we must have success here or we are doomed" (or that is the feeling I am getting). I live in Romania (Europe) and I am starting to see a little more WP handsets while riding the subway to work, but most are cheaper models. I think if WP sells best in EU, then they should focus more on it. Focus on EU doesn't mean abandon US.
 

Sport Driver

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But Slovenia is part of the EU and therefor the warranty needs to be accepted EU wide. So if you buy it in Austria and it has a defect, you can always send it to the seller in Austria and he/she needs to give you the warranty.
Sure I could but why would I have to send it to Austria if I could simply bring the device to service ;) . They would accept it but I would take more time, fear something happens with tablet on post,etc.
Well MS is being more US-centric, much like Apple but Google is more international if you ask me. But that is just me :D .
 

Beijendorf

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This has been bothering me for too long. Both Microsoft and Nokia under Elops targets the US primarily, and treated the EU like some second-hand backwater market. It's the reason I never bought a Lumia 1020 (released 3-4 months after the US got it). And now there's a half-year delay from the time the US got the 930/Icon until the EU gets it.

It's just not worth being treated like a non-valuable customer when other corporations hurry to put their handsets on the European market at the same time the US gets it, knowing the EU has a massive purchasing power.

And I'm Swedish, so I'm not exactly living in a tiny nation of very poor people. Yet Microsoft/Elops-Nokia treats us like a third world nation that can't afford high-end gear. If you don't value your customers Microsoft/Nokia, you won't have any customers left to value soon. If they pull crap like a 3-6 month delay just for the sake of US exclusivity one more time, I'll just pretend like their products don't even exist.
 

Citizen X

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This has been bothering me for too long. Both Microsoft and Nokia under Elops targets the US primarily, and treated the EU like some second-hand backwater market.

Then European should integrate and speak only one language, only have one legal system, only have one regulator similiar to the FCC, and have only 3 or 4 pan European cell phone companies with only really two big ones like at&t and Verizon. Europe is not a country. It is a continent. I am reminded of this every time I visit Europe and have to change cell phone operators three or four times during the course of a four hour drive. I love hopping from country to country in Europe in the amount of time it takes me to drive between two cities in the middle of nowhere America... but it comes at a cost.
 

Pierre Blackwell

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Microsoft has a European division so there is focus there. A lot of phones get released in other markets as well as the US including some that the US don't see like the 1320. I like the body design of that more than the 1520. MS being a US owned company and Apple being its biggest rival, also a US owned company the emphasis needs to be on the US. It doesn't mean its not in other places. In many markets, WP has surpassed iPhone sales, so I think MS is doing a good job of calculating how to manage their products.
 

theefman

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Then European should integrate and speak only one language, only have one legal system, only have one regulator similiar to the FCC, and have only 3 or 4 pan European cell phone companies with only really two big ones like at&t and Verizon. Europe is not a country. It is a continent. I am reminded of this every time I visit Europe and have to change cell phone operators three or four times during the course of a four hour drive. I love hopping from country to country in Europe in the amount of time it takes me to drive between two cities in the middle of nowhere America... but it comes at a cost.



Funny that apple, Samsung, htc and others don't seem to have a problem with launching handsets in Europe without ridiculous delays, just Microsoft and Nokia.
 

Beijendorf

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Then European should integrate and speak only one language, only have one legal system, only have one regulator similiar to the FCC, and have only 3 or 4 pan European cell phone companies with only really two big ones like at&t and Verizon. Europe is not a country. It is a continent.

Europe is a continent. The EU isn't.

And are you seriously under the impression that Microsoft and Nokia only have one office working with all their markets? They have offices in every single market they operate in. They're fully capable of coordinating their releases. In the EU we also have a supranational legal system and supranational regulations which makes all of this a lot simpler.

The mere fact that we have a lot of carriers in the EU means there's harsh competition, with carriers jumping on any advantage they can get, unlike in the US where the carriers dictate the rules and force companies like Nokia to make exclusivity deals and manufacture devices only to their small section of the market.

I mean for heavens sake, the mere fact that companies like HTC, Samsung, Oppo and so forth manage to release their devices in the EU and the US at the same time with top-of-the-line specifications disproves every single one of your points.

The EU isn't the problem. Microsoft/Nokia's US-centric market approach is.
 

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