We’ve known for a while that Windows phones have no place in Microsoft’s vision, but monitoring the evolution of the platform is still a thing that many diehard fans do every month.
Unfortunately, there is no good news in this regard, as Windows phones keep losing ground down to the point where they got dangerously close to their complete extinction – which, to be honest, will certainly happen sooner or later.
While Microsoft has abandoned its mobile strategy, not the same thing can be said about users, as NetMarketShare data shows that 0.15% of the smartphones out there are Windows phones.
NetMarketShare is one of the top providers of market share data for operating systems and browsers, and the company also covers mobile devices, despite this data being somewhat controversial in the past.
But according to the January 2018 numbers, Android is the number one choice for mobile devices worldwide with a share of 68.45%. And while we can’t discuss the actual figures, there’s no doubt Android really is the top mobile platform, as it dominates the biggest markets in the US, Europe, and Asia.
iOS is currently running on 30.60% of devices, NetMarketShare says, and this is pretty close to the numbers that other research firms provided for Apple’s mobile operating system as well.
The unknown category, however, is currently at 0.52%, more than triple the market share of Windows phone, which is slightly ahead of Series 40, powering only 0.12% of devices. BlackBerry’s OS is also close with 0.10%.
Unfortunately, these figures are very likely to continue their decline in the coming months, and it’s only happening because Microsoft isn’t planning any new updates for the platform, so users have no other option than to switch to Android and iOS.
And according to Kantar data, Android is the preferred choice for the majority of Windows phone users, most likely because Microsoft consumers aren’t exactly the biggest fans of Apple’s walled garden.
