Microsoft kicked off its Build 2013 conference, so if you have your head to the ground you’ll probably be hearing a lot of Windows Phone news over the coming days.
Principal Group Manager, Sam George talked a bit about the Windows Phone user base and where a majority of the company’s customers are from. According to a slide from Windows Phone Central that was displayed by Microsoft, 42% of Windows Phone devices were purchased when a customer upgraded from a “feature phone” to a smartphone. It’s like I always say, everyone has a smartphone these days- and pretty soon that will be factually correct.
Another interesting percentage has to do with defecting Android users. According to Microsoft, 23% of Windows Phone devices were purchased by users converting from Android. Of course, Microsoft called the switch “upgrading,” because Windows Phone offers so much more than the Android platform, right?
Relatively speaking, 23% is a pretty small number when you consider the massive population of Android users.
When you stop to do the math, adding 23% and 42% still leaves about 35% leftover. Microsoft didn’t reveal how the remaining chunk was divided up. For example, how many new smartphone owners are choosing to purchase a Windows Phone? How many defecting owners jumped from an alternate platform like Blackberry, or iOS? Perhaps there was something Microsoft didn’t want us to see, like poor adoption stats?
Judging by the slides, recent advertisements and more, it seems like Microsoft is trying to tell us that more users are switching from Android to Windows Phone than any other platform. Looking at this logically, that makes sense and almost has to be true. With the kind of user base that Android has, even a small amount chipping away would seem large for a company like Microsoft who’s not doing too great on the mobile front.
Moving on, Microsoft also claims that there are still 4 billion “feature phone” customers who do not yet have a smartphone. The day is coming when they will move to upgrade, and the race is on to attract more users. Well, actually the race has been going on for a while now.
What do you think of these numbers that Microsoft is quoting?