In the three months since the smartphones hit the U.S. market, Microsoft has offered two sales metrics. In December, the company told the media that some 1.5 million Windows Phone 7 units had been sold by manufacturers to retailers. On Jan. 26, it confirmed with Bloomberg News the number had risen to 2 million.
However, Microsoft remains reluctant to discuss how many of those devices might have reached consumers' hands. As someone helpfully pointed out in the comments section to my original eWEEK article, Microsoft's carrier partners would be the ones to provide that data; but I've queried AT&T and T-Mobile on a number of occasions over the past few weeks, and they seem equally reluctant to give any sort of hard numbers.
That silence is particularly striking, given how Google and Apple have made a habit of using sales numbers to suggest their respective smartphone platforms are unbeatable in the marketplace. "[Google CEO] Eric Schmidt pointed out that they're activating 200,000 units per day," Apple CEO Steve Jobs told media and analysts during an Oct. 20 earnings call. "By comparison, Apple has activated 270,000 units per day, on average."
Instead of offering sales numbers of its own, Microsoft executives keep pointing to research data suggesting some 93 percent of Windows Phone owners are either "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with their devices. And in a certain way, you can see their logic: as a new smartphone platform, Windows Phone 7 doesn't have the sort of momentum that translates into iPhone- or Droid-level numbers.
"Our numbers are similar to the performance of other first-generation mobile platforms," Achim Berg, Microsoft's vice president of business and marketing for Windows Phones, mentioned in a Q&A posted Dec. 21 on the company's corporate Website. "It takes time to educate partners and consumers on what you're delivering, and drive awareness and interest in your new offering. We're comfortable with where we are, and we are here for the long run."
Nonetheless, there are some signs that the launch of Windows Phone 7 may have been softer than hoped. An executive from one of Microsoft's smartphone partners, LG Electronics, told the blog Pocket-lint in a Jan. 14 interview that Windows Phone 7's launch was "less than we expected."
Meanwhile, a Facebook page for the Windows Phone application has 366,099 monthly active users. I asked Microsoft if this was the official page for the smartphone platform's Facebook application, and they declined to offer an answer. But given how at least one of the people listed on the page's "About the Developers" section works for Microsoft, I heavily suspect that's the case.
If so, that gives a possible baseline for the number of Windows Phone devices sold. There's a precedent here. Microsoft's ill-fated Kin One and Kin Two phones had 8,810 "monthly active users" for their Facebook application, and rumors abounded that less than 10,000 of either Kin had sold before their initial cancellation (Verizon later revived the devices as feature phones). If users of a smartphone's Facebook application are a rough indicator of its total user base--and considering the number of people who use Facebook, this is a safe assumption--and if the Facebook page for the Windows Phone application is genuine and official, then we can assume Windows Phone 7 has sold a minimum of 366,099 devices.
That's rough conjecture, though. Until Microsoft and/or its carrier partners decide to offer some numbers, we'll continue to be officially in the dark.
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