There were some big surprises in the most recent smart phone market share report from the NPD Group. As seen below Android market share dropped significantly but still held onto it's lead while Apple surged.
Many have already been commenting on Apple's bounce back with the iPhone 4S and RIM's race to ZERO market share but what I found most surprising is Microsoft's combined share of the smart phone market is still dropping. How can this be happening?
Windows Phone 7 with Live Tiles was hailed as an innovative entry in the smart phone market. Microsoft's follow-on release of Windows Phone 7.5 ("Mango") was a great step forward in functionality and the number of apps supporting the platform is growing and from what I can tell the quality of the apps is good.
The idea of Live Tiles, a phone you can glance at and get a good view of your day is great and most that review the OS tend to rave about Live Tiles but it's going nowhere in the marketplace. If the launch of the Lumia phone is not a success I imagine Steve Ballmer is going to lose a gasket and heads will begin to roll in the mobile division of Microsoft.
I think there are two main reasons why Windows Phone is not catching on. The first is that it's very difficult to go anywhere when you are the fifth horse in a race and that is where Microsoft was when they started over with Windows Phone 7. WebOS was fourth at the time and we know how that ended.
So Microsoft is #4 now with RIM perhaps falling below Microsoft late this year when they to try and reboot their phone platform. Microsoft's only chance might be to try and win the battle for #3 just to stay in the game and hope to get some wind in their sails with the launch of Windows 8 and the Metro UI which has a design language very similar to Live Tiles.
Even though it's tough to come from behind the mobile space is one where the pecking order can change quickly because early adopters upgrade their phones ever 12-24 months. This is why I'm so surprised Microsoft's share is dropping, it seems like early adopters are not interested in purchasing Windows Phones. So why has the concept of Live Tiles not helped Microsoft Windows Phone grow market share?
I think it's as simple as this. Although Live Tiles is a feature that I think the average smart phone user would like if it suddenly appeared in their iPhones it is not something that anybody other then technical early adopters are really aware of at the moment.
These techies are already using Android and are happy with the Widget support provided by that platform. It's a bit tacked on compared to Live Tiles but it gets the job done and offer lots of configuration options. If Apple adds Widget support in iOS 6 it could be game over for Live Tiles which would be too bad because it really is a great concept and is very well implemented.
Update: I just learned that the Nokia Lumia 900 is going to have a 800x480 screen. That is just pathetic and I can't see how any early adopter will want to purchase a phone with such a large but low resolution screen.
