Microsoft held its annual shareholder’s conference on Wednesday and CEO Steve Ballmer had good news for investors over early indications of Windows Phone 8 momentum. Ballmer said that sales of Windows Phone devices were four times as high as a year ago and that owners of Windows Phones will soon have 46 of the smartphone top-50 apps in store, available to download. These are interesting results and show much more public enthusiasm for WP8, however no specific numbers for smartphone sales were made available during the meeting.
The results seem to be good for a newly-launched Windows Phone OS and range of hardware coming into a fiercely-competitive market full of highly-opinionated devotees. Microsoft and its smartphone hardware partners have put in a lot of hardware and software design resources to make Windows Phone appealing to users yet different from the dominant market players. Also the Redmond-based company has spent a lot of money on advertising, not least on celebrity endorsements here and across the pond.
A fourfold increase in sales compared to Windows Phone 7 sounds pretty good but might not actually be that impressive – we simply don’t know the numbers. About a year ago WP7 sales were slated as disappointing, Ballmer told investors at that time that Microsoft “haven't sold quite as many probably as I would have hoped” and it was struggling for third place.
This year Ballmer told investors “Windows Phone 8 has been on sale for a few weeks and is off to a great start.” He continued “Handsets made by HTC and Nokia are getting rave reviews and have initially sold out in many countries”. Turning to the volume of apps available, a number that is often quoted, he said that the Windows Store is now stuffed with over 120,000 apps and that number will shortly include “46 of the top 50 apps that people use.”
Updates for Windows Phone 8 and the 7.8 update for Windows Phone 7.5 users
Microsoft has stated that there will be an update made available in December for Windows Phone 8 users. This update is aimed at fixing rebooting and freezing issues a number of Nokia Lumia 920 and HTC 8X users have complained about. Microsoft said that “We’re continuing to investigate some reports of phones rebooting and have identified a cause with our partners. We are working to get an over-the-air update out in December.”
Another WP8 update scheduled for H1 2013 will feature enhancements which are rumoured to include a notification centre, VPN and always-on Wi-Fi support. This update is dubbed Apollo+ by various news sites.
Turning our attention to Windows Phone 7.X owners it is now known that the Windows Phone 7.8 update will roll out to users “in early 2013”. This update concentrates on giving WP7.X users the new WP8 interface and also some more customisation options such as increased colour themes and lock-screen enhancements. Wohoo!
