It’s the race for third place. No matter how either Microsoft or BlackBerry spins their latest mobile efforts, for now at least, there is no catching Apple at the high end or the many flavors of Android racking up sales up and down the mobile phone price curve.
Still, a bronze means you get on the podium. So which company will it be that gets to hold its head high, a revamped BlackBerry riding its Z10 and new BB10 operating system? Or Microsoft and Windows Phone 8?
Microsoft’s corporate mouthpiece Frank Shaw, in a recent blog post attempting to take the piss out of Google’s spring-cleaning tradition, bragged that “Windows Phone has reached 10 percent market share in a number of countries, and according to IDC’s latest report, has shipped more than BlackBerry in 26 markets and more than iPhone in seven.”
So far so good. Except you’ll notice there is no mention of Windows Phone beating Android anywhere on the planet. That’s because according to the IDC numbers at least, it doesn’t.
IDC data for the fourth quarter of 2012 reveals that Shaw’s Windows Phone-loving nations include Argentina, Ecuador, India, Poland, “rest of central and eastern Europe,” South Africa, Ukraine and several others Shaw may have missed like Egypt, Vietnam and “rest of Caribbean.”
"Nokia-loving" might be a more accurate description, since in practically every case the countries where Microsoft is “winning” are also Nokia strongholds. They also happen to be places where unsubsidized Apple phones are nosebleed expensive.
To put it in context, according to IDC, Microsoft beat Apple in Argentina by selling 32,000 Windows phones in the fourth quarter. IDC wouldn’t get into the iOS sales details, but officially at least (gray-market sales are another story), Apple sold less than that. BlackBerry too. The number of Android phones sold in Argentina during the same quarter in contrast totaled 839,000, according to IDC.
India is the same story. Yes, Microsoft beat Apple with its 289,000 Windows Phone 7 handsets sold, but there were 4.2 million phones sold running the Android operating system. And at the high end in India, Apple is doing just fine thank you.
“Android is just going bonkers,” says William Stofega, IDC’s program director for mobile device technology and trends. “You have the official Android, the growth of ‘fake’ Android, and all these forked versions of Android; it is just impossible to put a cap on that and slow it down.”
But with all those flavors of Android out there, the way either Microsoft (or BlackBerry) could make inroads against Android is by offering a better, more consistent experience. “I think Nokia has a good shot at delivering a better experience with Windows Phone,” Stofega says. “In India today, the developers don’t have the support they want, Google reps aren’t available in country, so that is where they could make some progress.”
Progress doesn’t mean winning it all, however, and there is still BlackBerry to contend with.
The news this week from the battered Canadian company was a mixed bag. While BlackBerry eked out a profit in the fourth quarter and projected it would break even in the current quarter, it lost 3 million subscribers. That is the second quarter in a row that BlackBerry has lost subscribers. In the meantime, Windows Phone is gaining.
Still, that is from a very small base. Jan Dawson, chief telecoms analyst at research firm Ovum, sums Windows Phone sales up this way, “Pretty unimpressive,” he says. “It illustrates that the best and most expensive marketing in the world can’t sell something that people don’t feel a need for.”
The race for third place is a function of carriers wanting a third option, not consumers, Dawson says. “In some ways BlackBerry and Windows Phone are both trying to answer a question that no one has asked,” he says. “The carriers are really worried about a Google and Apple duopoly and what happens if they turn on them.”
Which is why there will be a third option (another player is Samsung’s own emerging operating system, Tizen), consumers willing or not, Dawson says. And Dawson is betting on Microsoft to capture the bronze.
He points to the trajectory of BlackBerry (down) and Windows Phone (up). He also looks at the support, or lack of it, that carriers are giving to the two operating systems. “AT&T has put almost nothing around the B10 launch,” Dawson says. “You wouldn’t know it existed, whereas there were significant marketing campaigns around the Nokia 900 and 920. Clearly. AT&T is betting on Microsoft.”
And there is also Microsoft betting on Microsoft. Dawson points to the boost Windows 8, with its similar style and user interface conventions, could give Windows Phone. Users of the computer and tablet operating system will have an easier time figuring out the mobile operating system and help it build momentum. Dawson isn’t talking some head-snapping rocket launch for Windows Phone, but a slow build. And Microsoft will give it the time that BlackBerry may not be able to. “Don’t forget,” Dawson says, “Microsoft seems to be perfectly willing to run a business unit for years (Bing!) that doesn’t make money.” There is that.
