At this point, we all know that Windows phones have now become completely irrelevant in the smartphone market, with just a few manufacturers such as HP and Alcatel still supporting the struggling mobile platform. And if you still doubt this sad state of affairs, IDC’s latest Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker shows that Windows phones only claimed 0.1% of the worldwide smartphone volume in Q1 2017.
If you’re wondering, IDC says that phone companies shipped 344.3 million smartphones (up 3.4M year over year) in Q1 2017, which roughly gives us 344 300 Windows phones shipped during that period. Additionally, the market research company expects 2017 volumes to decline 80.9% to just 1.1 million units this year. Barely a blip on the radar, in other words.
“Windows Phone shipments continue to fall as the lack of new hardware partners, developer support, and overall enthusiasm for the platform show no immediate signs of recovery,” explained IDC in the quarterly report. With just a 0.1% OS share in Q1% 2017, it probably won’t be long before Windows Phone eventually join IDC’s “Others” category, which claimed a similar market share during the same period. “Microsoft has yet to fully commit to any “Surface”-style attack for smartphones or to push new vendors to embrace the platform, leaving little hope of mounting a full scaled comeback in the years to come,” added the market research company.
