“Windows Phone handsets have outsold the iPhone in seven markets including India, analyst firm IDC has revealed, and beat out BlackBerry in 26,” Liam Tung reports for ZDNet.
“The countries where Windows Phone pipped the iOS handset in Q4 2012 were Argentina, India, Poland, Russia, South Africa and the Ukraine,” Tung reports. “The seventh market was a collection of countries, including Croatia, that IDC labels ‘rest of central and eastern Europe.’ IDC mobile analyst Kevin Restivo told the New York Times there were a few qualifiers to the Windows Phone results. There’s a ‘Nokia effect’ making Windows Phone popular where the Finnish company has traditionally been strong. Also, the grey market is sizable in some of the countries, and in Ukraine, South Africa and “rest of central and eastern Europe” fewer than 100,000 Windows Phone devices shipped in each market in the quarter.”
MacDailyNews Take: Meaning that the grey market is not measured and therefore the number of iPhones in each market likely outstrips Windows Phone sales many times over.
Tung reports, “Overall, IDC says Windows Phone and Windows Mobile devices accounted for six percent of the 227 million smartphones shipped worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2012. For the year, Windows Phone made up 2.6 percent… IDC expects Windows Phone to account for 11.4 percent of smartphone shipments by 2016, largely off the back of declining Android market share. It forecasts Apple’s share of shipments to grow from 18.8 percent in 2012 to 19.1 percent by 2016… It predicts BlackBerry to be flat with four percent share.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote well over two years ago on October 27, 2011:
Windows Phone will be popular. Over time, it’ll eat the lunch of the increasingly fragmented, increasingly insecure, and increasingly costly Android (losing patent infringement lawsuits and dropping features/paying royalties to multiple IP owners will do that to you).
The not-iPhone world will begin to dump Android and move to Microsoft’s mobile OS offering because it will eventually cost less, work better, and come with far fewer legal issues. In the iPhone wannabe market, it’s already happening (Nokia, for example). We expect the same to happen in the iPad wannabe market, too. Google and Microsoft will long battle each other for the non-Apple markets and that’s a much better scenario for everyone than having a single ripoff artist flood the market with fragmented, insecure, beta-esque, mediocre-at-best products. Google’s attempt to be the next Microsoft is doomed.
This, of course, will also impact Google’s search business. Apple’s Siri will increasingly deliver info to users sans Google and Microsoft will, naturally, use Bing for their search. As we’ve said many times in the past: Google will rue the day they got greedy by deciding to try to work against Apple instead of with them.
The bottom line: We’d rather see a company trying unique ideas, even if – shockingly – it’s Microsoft, than the wholesale theft of Apple innovations that we’ve been seeing for over
four[six] years now. Don’t steal IP. Even worse, don’t steal IP and “claim to be innovators.” We have no problem with any companies that attempt to compete with Apple using their own unique ideas and strategies.
Related articles:
J.D. Power: Apple ranks highest in smartphone customer satisfaction for 9th consecutive time – March 21, 2013
World’s best-selling smartphone: Apple iPhone 5; iPhone 4S #2, third place Samsung Galaxy 3 brings up rear – February 20, 2013
Interesting, seems that MDN iCal’d it correctly on Windows vs Android.
Which means Windows wil step into Android’s money losing shoes.
Those seven markets are all at the top of my list of places I want to live. 😉
Yea I think MDN has a point about the gray market.
I highly doubt there are more Argentinians walking around with Windows Phones than iPhones. Or buying, or however you want to count it.
They did not say that, Sparrow. The article specifically applies to handset sales in Q4 2012. Apple sold a lot of iPhones prior to Q4 2012. However, if true, this does potentially have implications going forward in terms of a market share shift.
Personally, I suspect that some people are buying Windows Phones rather than Android phones to use as “feature phones.” In the old days many of these feature phones were Nokia/Symbian phones. But the Android and Windows Phones have the potential to be used as smart phones, if you are willing to pay for a data plan.
Personally, I would love to have an iPhone. But I am not willing to pay for data services, so I grabbed the best available cheap phone to use on T-Mobile as a glorified feature phone. It happens to be an HTC Radar 4G running on WinPhone 7.5. It works fine as a feature phone – far better than that Samsung POS that I had for the last two years. However, if I ever decide to get a data plan, it is iPhone for me!
So THAT’S where those one million BlackBerry’s went.
How is Oct 27th 2011 “Well over 2 years ago”
Hellooo… 2011, 2013. It’s just simple math. /smh
End of Oct 2011 is 17 months from now (end march 2013): that’s 1.4 years.
1.4 doesn’t qualify as ‘well Over’ 2 years. it’s not even “almost” two years, it’s barely over 1 year. Or do I need to use my MDN iCal-culator ?
Need help counting :
(you can ignore last 4 days of Oct)
1) Nov. 2011
2) Dec.
3) Jan. 2012
4) Feb,
5) Mar, <– One year ago.
6) Apr.
7) May
8) Jun.
9) Jul.
10) Aug.
11) Sep.
12) Oct.
13) Nov.
14) Dec.
15) Jan. 2013
16) Feb.
17) Mar.
This is just sad. I was hoping that beyond the headline and the numbers, there was a story of Windows mobile somehow becoming a serious contender against the Android. While the last line did imply that (growth of Windows was on at the expense of the decline of Android), the primary point was that the overall numbers are so marginal as to have no effect in the two-horse race. I was hoping that Windows will enter the race more seriously and disrupt the Android alphabet soup. It turned out that in some markets, people seem to be buying Nokia phones out of habit…
do they really mean: supermarkets?
I really really hate to read this post. Some of them are huge markets for now and the future. And if a person is used to Windows phone he will most likely stick to it.
Windows phone – even I hate it – is not bad enough to move to iOS. The same with the PC users, only a few make a switch (and are happy, like me ages ago) but the bigger part just stays with stupid Windows.
Frankly this is very bad news. So sad that Apple has no weapon on hand for those markets. iPhone 4 as the cheapest iPhone, is not known as brand new. And this is what everybody wants, also in India.
Good points.
I switched from an iPhone to a Nokia Lumia 920 and love it. Sure, it’s not perfect, but it’s refreshingly different and it still syncs with iTunes. I’d consider going back to iOS if they do something interesting with the iPhone 6, but I have to say, I really love my Lumia. I’ll never go to the darkside for a PC though. 🙂
I’m sorry to ask this, but is Nokia still in business? Really? Another question, if you don’t mind: What makes your new choice “refreshingly different”? Is it more refreshing? Or more different? Seems to me familiarity breeds contempt in your case.
A true example of someone who pays no attention.
– “Shipped”, again with that channel filling BS.
– Cherry picking meaningless countries to try and make a “statistic” that gives the desired message.
Nothing, here moving on…
yeah, that’s old data. I don’t understand why MDN posted this bullshit. but as far as I know, iphone sale seems higher during 4-5 months only after releasing new one. after that sale is slowly going down. but Samsung galaxy phone continues to grow regardless of it. now iphone 5 has been continually down just like stock if you don’t know. it is not just applied to iphone. ipad is the same.
People get bored with Apple products. It’s getting old…..
MDN…you can’t count.
What about Uzbekibekibekistanstan?
Apple needs more variety in the phones. NOt everyone wants a 3.5in screen or a 4in screen that is only longer but not any wider. NOt everyone wants the same thing.
They have the ipad mini and ipad now so why not something with the iphone like that. Have the smaller screen but also like a 4.5in screen. Its nice to see all these phons with bigger screens some yes are way to large but 4.5 is nice i think. It just makes the iphone seem so small.
Make a little variety not everyone fits into one mold.
See also this post on WP8 vs Android:
Android Is Dead – Part 7: WP 8 Ratings
http://seekingalpha.com/article/1118421-android-is-dead-part-7-wp-8-ratings