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.
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.