Windows Phone 7 not reversing Microsoft's mobile slide
From November to January — the first full three months that Windows Phone 7 was available — Microsoft's share of the U.S. smart-phone market continued to slide, new data from comScore shows. — Microsoft's slice of the market fell …
Context & Ripple Effects
The launch arc was already showing strain before this data landed: Microsoft moved only about 40K units in Windows Phone 7's opening weekend in November (40K launch-weekend sales), then reported 2 million units shipped to carriers in Q4 (2M units shipped) — a shipment figure, not sell-through. By early February, Neowin noted that the legacy Windows Mobile platform was still outselling its successor (Windows Mobile outsold Windows Phone 7 in Q4). The new comScore numbers close the loop: across November–January, the first full three months of availability, Microsoft's U.S. share kept falling anyway.
The same day's signals cut both ways. Fortune's syndicated pickup framed the comScore data primarily as Android reaching #1 in the U.S., making Microsoft's slide a subplot of a bigger consolidation. Meanwhile Microsoft confirmed it shipped official Bing apps for Android and iOS while leaving Windows Phone 7 users without one, and reports circulated — unconfirmed — that Microsoft would pay Nokia more than $1 billion to promote and develop Windows-based handsets.
First-order effects
- Microsoft enters Q1 2011 with its U.S. smartphone share lower than when Windows Phone 7 launched, meaning the new platform is cannibalizing or failing alongside Windows Mobile rather than winning converts from rivals.
- Windows Phone 7 owners are visibly second-tier in Microsoft's own ecosystem right now: Bing got native apps on Android and iOS first, a signal to developers and carriers about where Microsoft sees reachable users.
Second-order effects
- The rumored nine-figure Nokia payment inverts Microsoft's classic licensing model — instead of collecting fees per handset, it appears prepared to pay OEMs to ship Windows Phones, raising the cost floor of staying in mobile.
- Carrier and developer attention consolidates around Android and iOS: with comScore showing Android at #1, partners deciding where to allocate shelf space and engineering time face a shrinking case for a third ecosystem that is losing share during its own debut quarter.
Third-order effects
- If paying OEMs becomes the price of distribution, Microsoft's mobile business shifts from a license-revenue line to a subsidized land-grab — sustainable only as long as desktop and server profits fund it.
- A continued slide points toward a structurally two-platform U.S. market, where any third entrant must buy relevance through subsidies and exclusive hardware partnerships rather than win it on software merit alone.
The trend: Smartphone platforms are consolidating around Android and iOS, pushing third ecosystems like Windows Phone into a subsidy-funded fight for survival rather than organic growth.