Windows Phone surpasses iOS for Second place in Russia!

Link

Great news! Surely a lot of App developers are now paying attention to Windows 10 Mobile now that the Windows Phone platform is growing!

According to a report out of Russian tech blog Siliconrus, Windows Phone sales in Russia for the first five months of 2015 have increased by 106% over the same period last year, pushing Windows Phone to the second place spot for sales in that time frame.

According to analysts, sales of Windows Phones in the first five months amounted to 690,000 units, representing 8% of smartphones sold over the time period. The increase in popularity is likely due to an increase in sales from the budget segment, with the most popular Windows Phone devices being the Lumia 530, 535, and 630.

Of particular note is that sales of Android devices stood still for the first time, accounting for 85% of smartphone sales. While the 8% share of sales on the part of Windows Phones in Russia is relatively minor in comparison, it appears that popularity is rising and possibly nipping at the toes of Android in the budget segment.

Old stats before

@musicalmac You overlooked this thread.....

@FireEmblem_Man: Your link is NO GOOD. You need to figure out your linking, FE.

;)

EDIT: Oh, I guess you were talking about this thread. It really speaks to the economic situation in Russia. Must be tough if they're settling for Windows phone handsets. At least they're smart enough to avoid android. ;)

Only when they build trust with Windows Phone, Apple with be dethroned!

I guess only time will tell. There's this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that your scenario is not likely anytime in the near future.

With Windows 10 Mobile and Continuum, it will be surpassing the iPhone

I think I've said it a thousand times on this board in particular. I'm not so much interested in how you project things to be in the future so much are they are right here, right now.

So often arguments against Apple's iPhone, ecosystem, anything really are based upon things that aren't yet available. Just more of the same. New day, new Apple killer. Nothing to see here.

Until Apple can turn their iPhone into a mini-desktop, I see a lot of people switching to Windows 10 Mobile within a decade.

Right, yet another thing that has not happened yet.

You do know their flagship phones are coming out this year, right? Continuum will be a big highlight that will impress a lot of people, especially big enterprise

Right, more things that have not happened yet. You know what has already happened? Real, actual enterprise things.

I'm talking about phones, and how their Continuum feature will revive the BYOD market as bringing iPads, iPhones, and Android products failed and something Microsoft is an expert at. You can cheerlead IBM and Apple's partnership, but I doubt a lot will use iOS to expand their businesses. You only showed me a press article full of PR, and nothing of the end results, BOO YAH!

I think you missed the point. IBM and Apple have made a partnership, there are dozens of enterprise-specific applications already in use today as a result. Windows 10 isn't even available yet, Continuum is being enjoyed by nobody right now. The BYOD market is completely and totally owned by Apple at this juncture.

That's happening now. Today. Right now. Not "it WILL be owned by iPhones and iPads," but "it is right now, today, at this very moment, dominated by Apple devices."

Huge distinction.

But no reports that majority of businesses are making the switch..... Also, Russia is still a Major European nation, them switching to Windows Phone/Windows 10 Mobile is the beginning, we already have Italy, France is growing, so is the UK, also the developing nations are wanting Smartphones to be their computing needs so Pakistan, India, Brazil, and others will follow.

You're right, I was foolish to question you. Things at Microsoft are going really, really well right now. It's much better to just assume everything will change, regardless of what we might be seeing happen right in front of us.

How did Microsoft's mobile share in the United States change last quarter? What about Apple? (Don't answer those, they're loaded questions.)

EDIT: Wow things are going really, really, really well for Microsoft! Rumors like that are a clear indication that MS is on such solid ground that they'll never give up the mobile ghost!

(Holy cow.)

Rumor denied! Try harder!

Here's a quote

"We are moving from a strategy to grow a standalone phone business to a strategy to grow and create a vibrant Windows ecosystem that includes our first-party device family.

-Satya Nadella- 7/8/2015

Sites like theVerge, Gizmodo, Engadget, ect are full of iPhone/Android fanboy's and want to see it only a 2 market system!

Edit: I'm disappointed in you, @musicalmac, you would always comprehend the quotes before posting. A lot of those tech sites has a misinterpretation of what Nadella is saying. They invested so much to make a Universal Platform for a mobile/cloud first world, but they're not giving into the iOS or Android that easily. I would have said the same thing for Apple when rumors were circling that Bill Gates would buy them out, instead he made up with Jobs and bailed them out and pledge continue support for Apple Computers with MS Office. Remember, they were bleeding money when they had little sales from their iMacs and iBooks back then.

@FireEmblem_Man: That last rumor was just a fun diversion. MS pulling out after all these investments seems pretty unlikely. So you can put the ponies back in the stable on that one. ;)

As for the layoffs–what even your clearly unbiased link had to say was pretty honest, in that there's really no good way to spin the axing of close to 8,000 employees. It's brutal. If that had happened at Apple, the Internet would have gone bananas. But it happened to MS, so, whoopee. Nobody really cares.

I'm glad you didn't answer my question about market share in the United States–smart. Though now you've gone from proclaiming the Windows advantage based upon products that we don't have yet, to proclaiming the weakness of Apple by referencing one very, very old financial woe.

You can say you're disappointed in me, but at the very least, I keep it current.

Of course US market share is crap, so what if MS is focusing on developing nations? Shouldn't they have something to compute on? Anyways, I'm only pointing out that quote as it seems like others such as iVerge, Engadget, ect has missed on. Comprehension is severly lacking. As for the job cuts? It happens all the time, I can see why they had to let go, it seems like its all factory workers that got the axe but at least MS does give them a good severance package

Actually, the layoffs made news on just about every tech website. So I'd say the internet cares quite a bit. Microsoft took in 25,000 employees as part of the Nokia deal. There was a larger first wave of layoffs last year and now there are additional layoffs this year, following in the wake. Mobile has not been easy for Microsoft and this shouldn't come as a surprise to most who have been following. In the post-Ballmer Microsoft, Nadella has been focused on streamlining the company and this news stays true to that.

You're right, their US market share is indeed crap. And some folks may find your classification of Russia as a developing nation a bit on a ridiculous side. But regardless, nobody said developing nations shouldn't have smartphones, not sure why you'd even ask the question. And job cuts are a big deal, they tend to happen to businesses that are struggling or divisions that are struggling. I think the ill-fated MS+Nokia combo is a pretty clear-cut example of just that (still pales in comparison to the Googlerola fiasco).

It did make the news sites, nobody said it didn't. What I said was that had Apple cut 7,800 jobs (or a relative number based on total employment at the company) the Internet would have gone absolutely insane, and Apple would quite simply be doomed (same prognosis, different day). The level of care expressed by the Internet generally was pretty low other than to report that it happened.

___

And then there's this. This brutal piece of literature lovingly compiled by the folks at Ars. I didn't even know which paragraph to cherry pick because they're all so jam-packed with well-cited and frankly damning stuff. So I'll just let you pick through it at your leisure. Very precarious times over in Redmond. This is just another example of why I'm always so hesitant to accept potential as a position of strength in an academic debate. This is what's happening right now at MS. Cuts, vagaries, and buzzwords, straight from the top.

It's refreshing to see someone else say that Nadella's rhetoric is heavy on hyperbole and light on substance.

And then there is also this.

Another one of those times when cherry picking a paragraph wouldn't do the article (or the attached video) justice. Legitimately sad times for a once dominant phone player, fondly remembered by many former-Nokia, non-Nokia smartphone owners today.

Been saying it much to FE's crying... MS has been consistently growing irrelevent since the day Steve Ballmer hautily laughed at the iPhone and iPad, saying, "We already made those. Mobile is not the future. We are nt threatened at all."

All I'm hearing from these guys is "It will be this way," and "it will be that way," or "once this happens," and "once that happens.." Truth is... Nothing's happened.

MusicalMac, you sure know how to lay the smack-down when it comes to tactful debate. I'm admittedly a lot less diplomatic when it comes to calling out FireEmblem_Boy's ridiculousness.

Listen Mister-Boy, Lumia isn't going away, I've already proved that MS is NOT giving up the Mobile market other than click-bait articles running rampant to get hits.

You just said: "But it happened to MS, so, whoopee. Nobody really cares." I pointed out that the internet seems to care considering how widespread the news has been. You even continued to post editorials surrounding the issue. Obviously there is a reasonable amount of attention and interest being given. As for your impression of the reaction? This is an aftershock from the groundbreaking news that emerged last year, so it doesn't carry the same level of surprise as something completely unexpected.

A fellow is allowed to exaggerate to make a point. If you took me at my word this faithfully all the time, I don't think we would have had quite as many debates as we have had in the past.

I never said the Internet didn't notice, I simply said that if the situation were reversed, and Apple were the one about which all this bad news had been revealed, the internet really would have gone absolutely nuts. And I'm not sure I'd call the loss of 7,800 jobs an aftershock, that's more like just another earthquake.

I certainly can't imagine describing this situation to any of those 7,800 folks, or the folks out in Nokia's homeland, as a mere aftershock. To marginalize the loss of that many jobs as Nadella's simply staying true to his mission to streamline MS is also completely bonkers. If you want to wade around in the kiddie pool of the issue, we can choose not to think about the reasons and implications surrounding such a move (and Nadella's hollow rhetoric) and just chalk it up to him fulfilling his promise.

But that's such a heartless take on an incident like this.

@musicalmac You can cut the drama, it's not adding anything to the discussion. I made my point, but I'm not interested in entertaining your perception on an "if it was Apple" scenario. Everything I've said pertains to this and the build up to it.

What drama?