WP in the UK - are you lonesome tonight?

[Chris Sandiford]

Question for UK users - how much presence do you see of WP8 in public and on the high street?

It was dismaying when I was in the Preston Carphone Whorehouse yesterday and it's wall to wall Crapple and Android and there are just three WP8 phones tucked away with the Blackberries. A L520, a L925 and a L620 (no other manufacturer)

They had 6 "real" phones on display to play with, three of each Crapple and Android.
Then the accessories were 8 racks of iPhone covers and a section called "Best of the rest." The rest? that just sums it up for me.

The other week In Tesco I heard staff talking nothing but Android to someone who wanted phone advice despite having a 925 on the shelf to sell. This because they themselves owned an Android handset.
Totally biased.

Then there's public usage - I have seen about 6 people with WinPhones ever.
Its worse among the yoof community - I was on a crowded tram stood up amongst 10 teens all sitting down (so I could gaze down in superiority) and they all had iClones - all discussing the 5C and why they were going to get it.

In my office there are 40 people and I'm the only WP user.
There's a guy who still has a N95-8Gb so he's an ok dude, but everyone else.. it's like the sound of one hand clapping.

Despite this 12% global market share we are supposed to have I can't see any evidence..

\What are your experiences in other parts of the UK.

 

[constantinosmi]

Actually I have seen plenty of WPs in the UK in contrast to last year. Most of them were Lumias . I have seen in trains, stations and even while walking. Of course the majority was either an Android device or an Iphone.

 

[Chris Sandiford]

Maybe it's just round me then. Certainly the hight street shops aren't pushing the platform.

 

[brunoadduarte]

I know you said UK exclusively, but that reality applies here in Portugal as well. I'm one of two persons I know that have a WP, being that my friend has a Lumia 610. The rest are iPhones and lower-end Androids. Only cool person is my dad, that ended up with my old N9 (couldn't stand seeing it in some drawer collecting dust).

As far as carriers go, we have three main carriers and in two of them the WP selection isn't all that bad, but it's mainly Nokias and the only other model that makes the cut is the HTC 8X.

As for retailers... Fnac (which I'm guessing exists over there) usually has all the Nokia selection, the 8X and the Ativ. PhoneHouse (Carphone Warehouse) has the 820, 920, 620 and 8X. All the others have two or three models tucked away with other less known brands.

The employees of those retailers mainly push for Android. And they're mostly uninformed about WP save some exceptions, but even those make the push for Google. When I bought my Lumia, I was unlucky enough to find an uninformed (or just dumb) employee, that made the Android push with the most stupid arguments I've heard. I ended up telling him not to speak about stuff he doesn't know because he was making a fool out of himself. He was a bit offended but got the hint.

 

[AndyCalling]

I'm seeing a good number of them in Southampton. Loads of iPhones and droids of course, but I haven't seen even one of the new coloured iPhones yet outside of the adverts on telly. Every time I see someone with a new phone it's either WP or droid.





Oddly, getting Nokia Care near Southampton is tough, but I can personally recommend the Preston branch. How come we've got all the phones down here and Preston, with no obvious WP footprint (according to OP), has all the support? Crazy.

 

[Chris Sandiford]

I've used the Nokia Care point in Preston in the past a few times with Symbians and yes they were always pretty decent.

Weird.

 

[brixpaul]

The shop's in Torquay almost actively discourage people getting wp8 phones. They did everything they could to dissuade me from getting my htc8x. The same with my daughter, she decided on a unlocked 520 for a ?100 and they did everything they could to get her to buy a galaxy ace instead. We love both our phones and try and persuade everyone to switch to wp8.

 

[dznk]

Not a lot round Leicester way that I've noticed, but I have seen a few 520's and 620's here and there. I was in Wales last week and in the middle of the Brecon Beacons, when a guy got his phone out to take a photo. He had a 720... good man.

I haven't been in a Carphone Warehouse for while, but I can only imagine they have the Android and Apple handsets dominating the shelf space like you said. I did go into a Phones4U about a couple of months ago and they were a bit better actually. In the shop window they had a large poster about the 520 which was nice to see. When I went in, they had loads of Samsungs on display, they even had a big dedicated lit up Samsung display case/fixture with them all on. The only Windows Phones they had on display and switched on were the 925 and 520 if I remember correctly.

It does annoy me when the sales people like to push Android and especially Apple so hard. As much as I dislike it, I do partly understand it though. When a new iPhone comes out EE, CarphoneWarehouse etc advertise it so much more than any other launch, but I take it that it's down to them being so over priced, that the carriers/networks earn more profit on those than they do selling a 520 or even a 925 or 1020. Annoying though.

But back to your original point, still not that many in the wild, but the numbers are increasing... gradually.

 

[ag1986]

You mentioning the Samsung case reminded me of something. My manager at work used to be Regional Sales Head at Nokia India. He was telling me of the days when Nokia was king of the Indian cellphone market, maybe 10 years ago. That was the time when I got my first mobile phone, just going into college, and my parents would only allow me to get a Nokia.

Those days, if a Nokia rep came into a store and saw displays of any other phone, he could just tell the store owner to get rid of them or he wouldn't get the next big Nokia release on time. This lasted till around when the N-series were coming up. This was also the time that Samsung was making noise in the market. Nokia was disdainful of this threat.

Nokia spent time and money training their in-store reps (guys who are employed by Nokia but work in mobile phone shops) flying in specialists from Finland and making sure each Nokia rep was able to understand a customer's needs and point them to the right phone, and explain that phone's features.

What did Samsung do? They went to the "Frankfinn Institute of Air Hostess Training" and told them to offer Samsung jobs to any of the girls there who didn't make it to an airline job. So you basically have pretty girls, get them a few rather attractive uniforms and that's all she wrote. Distributors were literally fighting with each other to get a particular girl in their store and they would promise Samsung anything. Customers would buy whatever these girls pointed to.

Ah, Nokia. What a long way to fall.

 

[Chris Sandiford]

Shocking..

 

[Dannay]

I've seen a few wp's around, my friend used to have one but shes just moved to android (poor her) she now hates texting even more saying her 920 was so much better to text on, ha.

 

[luk3ja]

in Carphone Warehouse in Nottingham and Bournemouth and Southampton they have Lumia 520, Lumia 620, Lumia 625, Lumia 820, Lumia 925, HTC 8S. Sometime 8X as well and sometimes 2 520's. In Nottingham there was also a Nokia rep in an EE store showing off her Lumia 925 and talking about all the cool features. I was impressed!

My housemate has a Lumia 520, my Dad has a Lumia 925, Mum has a HTC Mozart 7, sister has a HTC 8X and wants a 1020. I know 3 people with 920's, 1 with a 925, 2 with 620's and 1 with a 520. That's 11 Windows Phones and at the bus stop the other day both people either side of me had Windows Phones lol and on my university course I'm the only one with one but theres a fair bit of interest from the iPhone adorers.

Also on the tube in London there were 2 business people chatting holding bright yellow/green Lumia 920's that they had clearly been given to try out by Nokia via their company. On the tube in peak times I've only ever seen Samsungs and iPhones.

 

[Chris Sandiford]

Well that sounds more promising - maybe I'm in a WP black hole in the north west!