“Microsoft failed to meet its Windows Mobile sales target for its fiscal year 2008, the company said on Thursday,” Nancy Gohring reports for IDG News Service.
“By June 30, when the fiscal year ended, Microsoft had managed to sell more than 18 million licenses, less than its 20 million goal,” Gohring reports.
Gohring reports, “While the iPhone 3G didn’t hit stores until July 11, after Microsoft’s fiscal year ended, it could have had an effect on Microsoft. ‘The iPhone 3G is causing people to hesitate,’ said Bill Hughes, an analyst at In-Stat. ‘That doesn’t mean those 2 million all went to the iPhone.’ But some people likely decided to wait and see if the newest version of Apple’s phone could be more attractive to them than a Windows Mobile phone, he said.”
MacDailyNews Note: Apple sold over 1 million iPhone units in just its first weekend of availability.
Gohring continues, “ABI Research analyst Kevin Burden suspects that… the shortcoming in sales was due to a failure to make more headway among consumer users. While Microsoft has typically targeted Windows Mobile at enterprise users, it has recently begun talking more about the consumer-oriented features to the software. Microsoft may have inflated its potential Windows Mobile sales for the year based on hopes that it would gain customers attracted to the consumer-oriented message, he said.”
Full article here.
Dianne See Morrison reports for paidContent, “Though Microsoft wouldn’t single out any cellphone manufacturers by name, analysts speculated that delays of Sony Ericsson’s Xperia could have impacted the sales target.”
Morrison reports, “The iPhone was also a factor, with some speculating that the July launch of the new 3G device may have caused some to hesitate buying a Windows Mobile phone.”
MacDailyNews Take: Gee, ya think? Windows Mobile phones are caveman phones. Like Windows itself, Windows Mobile is just plain terrible. Don’t just take our word for it: Microsoft sycophant Mary Jo Foley: Windows Mobile is awful; avoid it like the plague – May 08, 2008
Morrison continues, “Of course, the other reason could be that Windows Mobile, which for years was targeted to business users, just didn’t have enough consumer appeal.”
Full article here.
Todd Bishop reports for The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, “Robbie Bach, president of the Entertainment & Devices Division, touted the 20 million-unit projection repeatedly during presentations at industry trade shows during the past year.”
Bishop reports, “The first clue about the shortfall emerged in early June, when a letter from Lees to the company’s partners said the company would sell “nearly 20 million Windows Mobile smartphone licenses” for the year, as opposed to the company’s previous promise of “more than 20 million” licenses sold. Asked about the change at the time, a Microsoft product manager said any shortfall would be nothing more than ‘a rounding error.'”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers too numerous to mention for the heads up.]
This is just the beginning.
Ballmer can be defined as a “rounding error.”
Maybe if they count Zune sales, they’ll be close to their 20 million goal . . . oh wait, that’d be 18,000,005 . . . never mind
Being off by nearly 10% is just a “rounding error” to MS?
I’d like to tell my engineering lead that I’m off by just under 10% but it’s just a rounding error.
No wonder MS is beginning to flounder…
I was talking to a Windows Mobile corporate user the other day, he wanted to have a closer look at my iPhone 3G. He was concerned about his exchange stuff, so I fully reassured him, showing the exchange logo available when you create a new mail account. He told me he was happy about it regarding mail, client accounts and office files but regarding “fun” stuff like photos and web it was lacking… a lot (just to report minimalist sentence)!!!
It looks like next year, M$ won’t even sell 18 Million licenses….
Leave it to MAC sheep to get all excited over a ’rounding error’. Fact is Microsoft’s wildly innovative Windows Mobile is selling at a brisk pace to consumers want to take the cubicle experience of the desktop Windows product with them in their pocket. How cool is that? Business moves at the speed of Microsoft. You I-Phone dorks might want to get out of the way.
Your potential. Our passion.™
seriously though, 18M phones? That’s a lot. Why don’t I see more people walking around with WinMo phones? I mean, if I go to my mall, I will see iPhones everywhere, where are the missing WinMo phones?
Where are the missing 18 million WinMo phones? China, most likely. Well, ’till the iPhone goes on sale there…
“Of course, the other reason could be that Windows Mobile, which for years was targeted to business users, just didn’t have enough consumer appeal.”
What they mean by consumer appeal is that isn’t easy to use, and in fact any good. Business users typically can’t afford to care about those things because they have to use what they’re told to and/or given. Businesses use what everyone else uses and nothing changes and nothing gets better. Until now.
I have 2 million rounding errors in my wallet from time to time. What’s another million or two mistake, here or there?
@dallas
18 Million is a lot of phones but that number is spread over 100s of models and very few people actually use the features because they interface is not optimized for the form factor, so you would have a hard time spotting them amongst the 2+ Billion Phones sold.
As for the rounding error comment, thats Excel for you.
Microsoft loves to quote how many “licenses sold”. What a bunch of crap. All this means is they forced their $htty mobile OS onto a bunch of sub-standard phones.
We sell millions and millions and millions of phone and Apple sell zero. In a few months time…….
Zune Ballmer, circa January 2007
It doesn’t say 18 million phones. It says 18 million Windows Mobile licenses that were sold to device manufacturers like HTC and Samsung.
@R2
My point exactly. Just like Microsoft, always say want you have shipped, or how many licenses you have sold. Never give the actually number of anything that have been sold. Same company that came up with this point system so you would have to spend more money once you began spending your money.
How many Micro$oft Points do I need to buy an iPhone?
I agree. I love how they always mention licenses sold, but never the number of actual hardware sold. There is a big difference between the two.
Piper Jaffray: iPhone Launch Survey
Do you have a Mac or a PC?
39% were PC owners and never owned a Mac
What was your old phone?
give or take: 52% owned phones that ran WM
I say let the games begin!
“Gohring reports, “While the iPhone 3G didn’t hit stores until July 11, after Microsoft’s fiscal year ended, it could have had an effect on Microsoft.”
Stop the presses.
We keep hearing about iPhones 1 mil weekend, and we know they were virtually sold out around the world. But I haven’t heard much lately about supply. Has Apple been able to get caught up on backorders?
“Apple sold over 1 million iPhone units in just its first weekend of availability.”
But only sold 700,000 units in the 3 months preceding that. So the key thing will be what the long term trend is, not initial launch shipments.
In any case, despite the iPhone hype, looks like Microsoft’s creaming Apple in the smartphone market too.
“delays of Sony Ericsson’s Xperia could have <b>impacted</i> the sales target.”
::sigh:: Impact as a verb. It’s everywhere and still unacceptable. It’s like saying I’m keyboarding this comment.
“By June 30, when the fiscal year ended, Microsoft had managed to sell … less than its 20 million goal,”
Really?!
Even though Microsoft Accounting was including
Jos. Louis sales in Gatineau as “Units of Windows Mobile licenses, rounded up, more or less.” ?
The math, here, is disturbing.
MS has been touting selling Twenty Million WM phones in a year? Wow, that’s a lot! But they fall short by Two Million, and that’s a “rounding error”? Well … who can predict these things? But, they (and their toadies) dump on Apple who only plan on selling Ten Million phones? And who might fall short by a couple hundred thousand? One quarter of the difference, but that ISN’T a “rounding error”?
Also … WM has been out there for a couple of years. It should have picked up some steam, were it any good. And it is the OS in many phones, by many makers. Word of mouth should be growing the market for them, if it’s any good.
So … with maybe ten times as many models to choose from, why can’t they do any better than sell twice as many phones?
dallas, it’s one thing to “see” a WM phone and quite another to “recognize” it. You may well have “seen” three times as many WM phones out there without noticing they were any way different from my “dumb phone”. The iPhone is, or WAS, easily recognized even from a modest distance. The majority of WM phones, not so much.
Long Term, you have a point – and you are wrong. Those 700k sold in the previous three months were sold despite the anticipation that a new iPhone was on its way – in July. That would have depressed sales significantly. Totaling the two would give a better appreciation for the “trend”. Seeing the numbers from ALL of July would be handy, as well.
Spark:
Been a line every morning since launch here in SLC, and sells out the supply every day.
You tell me, how is the supply going?
I wonder how that actually works with a license. Do manufacturers buy numbered licenses in lots, and then just install the software as they are built? This doesn’t entail a hard copy like buying a retail version of Windows. It could be the licenses were sold but the hardware hasn’t even been assembled.