Windows Phone gains small bump in market share for September

Look out, Rodneyej is gonna sound off on this one!

LMFAO❗❗❗ .... I was looking for someone who mentioned my name, and didn't have to look far.
.......
Hey, why don't you go ahead and do it for me? Just this once

I think we prefer you. You do it best.

Lol❗❗❗ Steadfast, I tell you that's what it's all about.. You have to be consistent, and steadfast.. Thanks for the recognition..

There you are!

Yep! Never miss a beat.

I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.

There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying.
When I was a child I had a fever
My hands felt just like two balloons.
Now I've got that feeling once again
I can't explain you would not understand
This is not how I am.
I have become comfortably numb.

Lumia 430❓

No thanks to Verizon, bad pic choice.

Is this image of a Verizon Windows Phone meant to re-stir our ire for Verizon's failure to update any Lumia?

Regardless of what the picture is intended to do, it does make me furious.

Yea can you guys not use that image. Everytime I see that I get excited thinking its a Lumia Icon Cyan article

No, it is not.  Carry on citizen.

Yes it is. Daniel hinted in the one of the videos about the microsoft band that there would be an impending update to cyan. It gave me a little glimmer of hope for those of us that are on verizon. 

Wait, I thought the band didn't need cyan to work. I didn't read an explanation (I didn't look very hard), so I assumed it used magic.

When I saw the pic, I thought maybe the update was available. Which would have saved Verizon a customer, maybe. As it is, tomorrow I will be moving to AT&T and picking up the Lumia 830.

Moving over gets you $150 from ATT for changing Carriers.

Att also has a referral program like DirecTV, $25 each, not sure if its per line anymore though

nice phone, I hope you enjoy!

That was exactly my thought....no thanks to VZ they gained market share.

Well google apps would dominate since android phones have the biggest marketshare.

Yep, I don't know why that means 'things are good for WP'...that's how Statistics work..the most popular apps will come from the much larger install base...

^^ this. Really don't appreciate "writers" who don't bother or don't know to make that clear. Seems biased.

It's important because they're dominant over android and iOS (that charts shows app usage across platforms right?) and due to the high usage of googles apps it's reasonable to assume people are somewhat locked into that ecosystem. So if they don't care for android they can move to iOS and still have access to all the google apps, the same isn't true for windows phone, which is a problem. Google not releasing any of their apps (other than search?) is the only reason I haven't switched to WP yet.

My thoughts exactly.

That analysis does not even look at WP, just Android and iOS platforms (see my comment below).

People use Google+?

No. The app is just installed. ;)

Your dumb, people use G+. Posted via the Windows Phone Central App for Android

No, they don't. Not willingly anyway *cough, YouTube fiasco, cough*.

*you're   I don't normally correct spelling, but... when calling someone dumb. Or, are you saying dumb people use G+? :)

I don't know anybody who uses G+ consciously.

I guess all those posts on G+ are done subconsciously then... :-/ The conscious posts will be very scary if thats the case....

Just for the + $_$

But when you need it, it's not on the Windows store!

People using Google anything have a choice to use Google+???

I take solace in knowing that some of those apps are only really up there by virtue of Android being the most popular OS, and not because those apps are necessarily better than their functional equivalents from Microsoft/Nokia. Youtube being the biggest exception to that. Apple Maps, also, is garbage and only up there because the iPhone is so popular.

True...

Not to mention Comscore only looks at Android and iOS for that chart. Says so at the top of it on the site.

I still can't believe MS hasn't started their own version of YouTube.

See why youtube app is not as used as Facebook....

Go MICROSOFT!
We Lumia users love you!

Even thou I'm not using an app made by Google, I can still get to Gmail, Maps, and YouTube from my Windows Phone, and in a pinch Google+ even thou there are no real good solutions as of yet. So does our data/traffic still show up correctly? I look forward to the day Google makes us a for real G+ app. That would be awesome.

Our data is not included in that chart at all (only looks at Androi and iOS users).
 

Uhh, that ain't coming. Google WILL NOT develop for windows platform, cos they know that if they did it, it would be equivalent to cutting their own hands off. Microsoft will own them like guinea pigs! PS: Personal opinions.

Doesn't mean much since Google Play and Apple Maps are preinstalled and can't be removed.

Actually most of Google apps are pre-installed and cannot be removed.

Just curious, is this a stat for install base or for active users? Because if it's for active users then it doesn't matter whether it's pre-installed or not, these are the most popular apps because people use them daily. That's a very important statistic. I have a lot of pre-installed apps on my phone that I never bothered to uninstall and have never used and, conversely, there are apps I use daily across ALL platforms--where it's avilable--that just so happen to come pre-installed on one OS or another.  That's like people complaining about Internet Explorer all over again, or denouncing it's user base. Yeah, it comes pre-installed but I don't have to use it and the thing about Android is that there are like a dozen alternative choices for each Goole app. Hell, if you buy a Samsung phone they will do you the favor of pre-installing all their junk Google alt apps. Apart from having a Gmail account, you don't need to use any of Google's services.

Microsoft keep working hard! Windows phone will become more famous when they close the app gap, we need Facebook app center! Also, stop changing your app names all the time.. Microsoft's apps are better in other platforms, think of your OS first!

I think MS keeps low share for the WP appeal.

Well, it's not working.. Lol!

What do you suggest they do❓❓ Name three of the most important things MS needs to do to increase adoption.

*) feature parity at least with iOS, preferably Android *) improve cross platform development; develop a free, efficient cross-platform API and tools for developers (see Xamarin, currently MS is somewhat working against that); continue work with cross platform game engine developers, and give them the APIs they need (supporting OpenGL ES 2.0 and up wouldn't hurt) Converting any app to WP/W shouldn't be more than a months work, preferably less than 2 weeks. *) develop desirable, exclusive apps, games and features (ie. a reason to switch) **) improve pricing strategy on phones; do not teach the consumer to wait for a reasonable price, rather encourage them to switch right away with launch promotions (for example: 20% off for first month, 10% for next month, regular pricing after that until the next iteration or holiday; inform the customer about the limited duration of the promotion). **) improve release-to-launch -time to be no more than two months worldwide, and no more than a month for your most important markets ***) concentrate efforts based on marketshare; the biggest app gap in WP is local apps, local apps are developed when a big enough percentage of the local customers require / want the app, the absolute numbers matter very little. Markets above 20% market share should be treated equally however, as the gains after (somewhere around) that are diminishing. This is not a suggestion to ignore (especially, bigger) markets with less market share, but rather to prioritize things such as marketing, releases and feature development

On a consumer perspective,
1) Not just be US centric; just a sample:cortana in India can't even tell my ip address if asked whereas US cortana does.
2) Create buzz about new products(especially something like 1020) and make them available in at least a few regions before 6 months
3) Make WP specific things better by improving them and not ditching them(Looking at the Hubs concept or the live lock screen) If you would like to hear(or read :-P), I can give you 15 more things that MS must do/change...

My point is that no matter how many things MS does to improve WP none of it matters if nobody knows about it.....
...............
Marketing❗❗❗❗

Agree with both posts but MS was been letting exclusive apps go to competitors for years. I wouldnt have let Office go to iOS or Android.....but in the end money talks...

The app gap isn't that bad, the problem is carrier apathy and dumb exclusives, not to mention . Stupid product release schedules that miss the holiday season with a nice new premium stocking filla. Fix these, fix windows phone. Oh, and I almost forgot, include firmware updates in developer preview so the like s of Verizon can't screw the users by holding back updates

I agree. I think the app gapp for phones has decreased signficantly. A lof of top-tier devs still do a piss poor job of updating their apps and there is still a lack of feature parity but most consumers can be happy with a WP if they gave it a chance. There is still a huge app gapp in tablet optimized apps. Here I would actually rank them: iOS>WP>Android. 

step 1) fire Joe B and Terry M. Get people who think 0.2 is not acceptable. Devs are already dropping like flies, and copanies like AA don't even care to suppot what they created. MS has to bribe companies to get an app (hi dropbox). step 2) embrace android apps. stop the app gap. hey, at least we'll ge ta decent version of MS office if you do as android is now to become better than windows phone which as outdated apps MS can't care less for. step 3) sell nokia. exit hardware completely phone wise to attrace OEMs who hate you competing with them.

So you think selling the biggest WP OEM so the ones who couldnt care less are the ones left will help WP marketshare? Good thinking, Sherlock!

3) how that worked on the begging of WP? Not good.. We only started to see WP share become relevant when Nokia started to make WP's.. And one more thing, if you don't have good hardware and good apps how you going to sell windows phones?
So your solution is to ditch Nokia and deliver the production to crapy hardware vendors.. The only good mobile phone except Nokia ones are only one phone, the HTC one m8 for Windows

What about the win blu Jnr? There are some nice entry level OEM phones out there that beast the Nokia offerings (530) but in general your point is valid.

MS IS embracing Android AND iOS apps.. developing them as priority! :P

Lol❗❗❗ .. Good one.

Devs are not "dropping like flies". A couple have left, hundreds added. Drama queens, geez.

So typical of media and comments these days. But we all know sensationalism is the direction to go if you're gonna make those headlines!

That plan sounds more like a sabotage for windows phone. I agree .2 is not a satisfactory increase. We need flagship phones and an increase in R&D to stand out from the rest

The biggest obstacle is phone store employees. Seen them talk someone out of wanting the Windows Phone they came in for.

I can't believe Microsoft is allowing that. There would be hell to pay if my companies products were treated that way by a "partner".

They kinda have to tolerate it. It's not like Google or Apple is paying off carriers to not push an OS. It's hard to recommend a device that is so far behind in terms of apps, features and quality compared to android or iOS. Posted via the Windows Phone Central App for Android

Features and quality are all over Windows phone and Lumia devices. How can you say it is behind in features and quality? You didn't say which features for one and two not all Android and iOS devices have every imaginable feature and lack quality in OS and especially hardware. My HTC 8X runs better than most of the Android devices I troubleshoot on a daily basis. Apps though... you are correct about that.

Yeah "Lumia" devices. Other devices are crap and Microsoft really does not care about other devices. So the people who have a Samsung, or Blu devices get left out in the dust.

Jacobwithalotofnumbers; are you drunk?

A little. Posted via the Windows Phone Central App for Android

"a device that is so far behind in terms of apps, features and quality compared to android or iOS." Seriously? You really believe that? Is there an App gap? Yes, but not nearly as bad as everyone makes it sound. Features? What features that are really relevant are missing from the Windows Phone? Quality? I would put a Lumia phone up against any comparable Android phone or iPhone any day of the week.

Here we go again. Attack of the fan boys. Posted via the Windows Phone Central App for Android

I can, just look at the recent CNN debacle with the Surface, and the fact that ESPN is still calling the Surface an Ipad. For whatever reason MS isn't demanding more from the money they spend.

Phone store employees aren't "partners" and Microsoft has no standing to dictate which products the employees push on customers. They don't have to "allow" it. Let's not make this somehow Microsoft's fault. Most electronic store employees, no matter if they were briefed on the qualities/specs of a product, will more likely than not recommend a product they use personally or know someone who does. If a company wants to be better represented they send their own reps to the store. That's why many Best Buys have a Samsung, Windows, or Google experience section in their store. If I don't know jack shit about Windows and want to know the best WP phone to buy I go to the people wearing the Windows t-shirt. Best Buy employees are only pushed to make a sale, the store manager could care less if you sell A or B, as long as you make the sale. How best to make a sale than by pushing a product you are familialr with and can sell convinsingly. 

@Analyss14, I'm not talking about someone coming in and going "which phone do you recommend?" I'm talking about my boss going to a Verizon store and saying he wanted to buy a Windows Phone and the sales associate said to him "why would you want to do that?" Big difference. My boss isn't the only one that's happened to.

I know what you meant. It's happened to me as well. I've had them try to sell me different products or up sell me when I go in wanting an older released product. It happens. I've had people push me towards Windows PCs when I wanted a Chromebook or push me towards a PS4 when I wanted an Xbox. Doesn't negate what I just said. Microsoft has no control over what the sales employees push. They push what they use or what their friends use or if they have no preference they push what's most expensive or if they see you're standing strong on a budget they'll push the cheapest product just to get the sale. That's retail. There's always a bias. If Microsoft wants sales rep that are more knowledgeable and proactive about selling their products then they can send more sales reps to the store, if it allows that kind of partnership. 

I agree. Those ppl have never used a Windows Phone for a longer period. Same thing happens with all the electronics. Sometimes I have a lot of fun making myself to seem ignorant to hear how much bs they talk to sell me something they want me to buy.

I'm using Cortana,Bing, MSN, Finance and hotmail more and more everyday to at least spike consumer usage. Then again, I'm just one compared to the billions Android smartphone users.

Do it on earth day.

David vs Goliath... Just need to hit your target and things can succeed, but this David keeps missing the temple...

It would be good to mention these are for the US... Also, the list of top 15 apps did not even look at Windows Phone "Top 15 Smartphone Apps
September 2014
Total U.S. Smartphone Mobile Media Users, Age 18+ (iOS and Android Platforms)
Source: comScore Mobile Metrix" Also, the Mobile Metrix also includeds tablets, "comScore Mobile Metrix provides mobile audience measurement across smartphones and tablets"

Excellent point.. This is US market share.

All those google apps run in the background whether you like it or not on android. So actual use is probably a lot less. Same with yaboo finance on the iphone. Its just the default app for stocks and runs in the backround by default. These numbers are bogus.

Wouldn't use Google apps even if they were present...

Sad, sad. Google should be ashamed.

Yahoo weather widget? Really?

:) Is iOS using it as one of the default ones? I would imagine Google would not. :P

I think Yahoo stocks and weather are the defaults on iOS. (Not sure about the 'widget' part though)

Yahoo stocks is default on iOS. Yahoo weather was replaced with the Weather Channel in iOS 8

Google play? I have yet to see a single person using that

That's the store. So yeah.

Guys don't give up ! Sitting here in my local coffee bar I can see at least 10 lumias out of 30 people. And it's growing everyday I don't trust this percentage.

Population density doesn't matter. Your town is a WP town.

In any event, I don't think this is a race, at least I hope MS doesn't see it that way. Seriously, all I care for is that they just keep improving the WP platform which I think is turning out really good, unique and polished. One of its kind really. Even if WP remains 3rd place for the foreseeable future, that's cool, doesn't mean I'll suddenly pick a Droid or an iPhone, would have done that long ago if that was what I wanted. I think it's safe to say that those that freely choose WP simply like the platform or maybe MS stuff in general, it has nothing to do with statistics, google or apple.

I have stopped using scroogle products a long time ago I dont need them.

Some of Android apps runs without you knowing in the background , that's why , I always see them running in the background without me using them

We need a phone that we can brag about , Lumia 1030 will be OK

Marketing

Google sucks major balls. No need for crappy Google apps on WP. Don't miss em, never will.

We are the 3.6%!

You could mention in the title or the article that this is the US marketshare. Your audience is global, don't forget it ;)

Microsoft could buy T-Mobile and call it "Lumia". I don't think I need to say which two hardware makers I'd drop after chopping the fee's in half to attract cell phone users.

no doubt said in jest, but an absolute beauty of an idea, provided the other carriers don't dump windows phones as a result. Careful consideration would be required

According to the source link Symbian doubled it's market share: Symbian
0.1%
0.2%
0.1 At this rate it will be the #1 OS in no time. :-)

Dang it Windows Central staff. Every time I see a picture of a Lumia Icon with the Verizon logo, it makes my poor heart jump...and then break, hoping it's news about Lumia Cyan

Verizon will hurt any further advances. Make them release updates Microsoft.

This article fails at one basic thing: inform that these numbers are ONLY ABOUT THE US MARKET.

Thanks God, I am not using google, always sucks.

It's good to see that there is only one crap google apps in windows store, not all the crap apps

One interesting thing is how many people download the Facebook app but not the Messenger app, meaning that Facebook's stupid insistence to separate what was once one app into two isn't paying off. Fewer people are now messaging on Facebook because of that nonsense. Of course, next they're probably going to spin off separate apps for photos, events, and newsfeed. So dumb.

3.6% is pathetic. If MS is serious about windows phone they need you start releasing some killer app updates and make sure owners of older windows phones are not left out of OS updates leading them to switch to android.

Not only is it pathetic, it will probably go down before it goes up. Microsoft more than likely will lose almost everyone who purchased their WP 8 when it was release two years ago in November. Which will dramatically decrease their shares. Only a few sentimental WP users will not switch over to a real flagship device.

3.6% may be small but soon it will be 10%. Apple iOS is at 41%, ten percent lower then Android, no wonder they want to hold on to that, and that Apple can tell mostly everyone to buy there crap. On the bright side, we lead over blackberry !

I'm hoping for a dual sim 1520 replacement....

Maybe if Microsoft made a compelling device, and advertised it, people would inquiry about it at the local carrier stores. Why would a carrier employee recommend a WP with outdated specs, and very limited apps, when he could recommend the latest IPhone or Samsung device with state of the art features, specs, and apps?