Microsoft has stopped the market share bleeding with the Lumia 900, but still has a lot to gain

Microsoft, Nokia & AT&T had high hopes for the Lumia 900 back in January

Microsoft with the help of Nokia has stemmed the bleeding of market share over the last two years as the new comScore number just published reveal.

The number of mobile subscribers is up 0.1% to 4.0% ending at the end of May, 2012. That means those numbers include the launch of Nokia’s much hyped Lumia 900 on AT&T and softer launches of the admirable Samsung Focus 2 and HTC Titan 2.

That’s the good news because Microsoft has been losing market share to Android and the iPhone for a very long time now. If we look back to the same period in May 2011, you can see Microsoft had 5.8% of the market and continued to slide up until the end of May this year.

The bad news is multifaceted. For one, these numbers include Microsoft’s legacy Windows Mobile devices, which presumably have now mostly died off. Number two should be obvious. Although stopping the hemorrhage and gaining some market share for the first time in years, a 0.1% increase is hardly anything to be excited about—especially if you’re Nokia.

comScore's latest numbers show Microsoft doing slightly better

The Nokia Lumia 900 on AT&T is hands down the most visible and well promoted Windows Phone to date. The marketing campaign was quite solid, presence was high and it was being heavily discussed in the press. Despite those efforts, Microsoft and Nokia have barely been able to squeak by and if anything, we can read the 900’s sales as being mediocre, at best. We're also curious to see how Nokia's stock will respond, though our guess is not well (currently it's still at the very low $2.14, up slightly).

That certainly has to be disappointing, especially for those of us who had pinned high hopes on this AT&T flagship device. And although June may also bring in some more numbers, our bet is sales of dropped slightly and not increased making 4.1% by the end of the summer the likely market share for Microsoft.

comScore of course is not the only numbers house around, so take these numbers with a grain of salt until they can be corroborated with other market indicators.

Source: comScore