Today I asked a salesman in a big high street phone store in the UK if they were selling many Windows Phone 7 phones:
"We sell a few a day," he said. "People don't come in and ask to buy one like they do with the iPhone, of course, but a handful of folks walk out with one anyway."
I asked him why he thought they went for a WP7 phone instead of an Android or iOS device:
"Honestly, a lot of them are just looking for a phone to make phone calls; they don't seem to care about the operating system. I guess you could say that they buy them by accident."
I asked him why he thought they went for a WP7 phone instead of an Android or iOS device:
"Honestly, a lot of them are just looking for a phone to make phone calls; they don't seem to care about the operating system. I guess you could say that they buy them by accident."
That may be the case in the UK, but in the US it's not very likely. Most are tied to dataplans (at least to get the subsidized cost). They'd be steered to feature phones if they just wanted phone calls, except by possibly the least ethical salespeople.
I suspect its probably more that they don't keep up with this stuff on daily basis like us. Android, iPhone, Windows -- to them Windows is as popular as those other two brands. And then after playing with the phone some of these people walk out with it. Others Android, others iPhone.
I suspect its probably more that they don't keep up with this stuff on daily basis like us. Android, iPhone, Windows -- to them Windows is as popular as those other two brands.
I think there's a lot of truth in that. When faced with a choice of 40 devices and half a dozen operating systems, people who don't know buy what they do know, even if it's just a name.
And then after playing with the phone some of these people walk out with it.
I visited the store specifically to try one out, but they didn't even have a working WP7 demo unit on display. He said it was 'out the back somewhere, charging', which is UK phone shop code for 'my manager sold it on eBay'. Regardless, it sounds like some of their WP7 customers were willing to buy before they try.
I think people buy phones more on manufacturer than anything else. I really don't think your average man on the street really cares whether their phone runs Android or WP7, to them they have a Samsung, an HTC or a Motorola.
My friend got a WP7 phone without really realizing it; it was sold to his as a new HTC model (he's happy with it BTW).
US salespeople aren't steering anyone to feature phones -- they are directed to pitch everything a smartphone can do to sell those lucrative data plans. This does not make them unethical, that's how sales works in every industry.
See, enlightened self-interest works against that principle. If you've got a self-interest time horizon longer than 10 minutes, you'll see that it makes more sense to sell the customer something he or she won't regret buying any time soon, or you won't get repeat business and word of mouth. There may be a little bit of oversell, but with the calculated aim of the customer growing into the oversold features.
If, on the other hand, you sell mainly to passing traffic and/or tourists, or from a temporary stall, then you genuinely don't have an incentive to hold back.
There are probably many companies still relying on Win Mobile for tried and true outlook and exchange integration. While WP7 (and iPhone) promises the same the phones are more expensive, new and untested, and won't work with the custom legacy software built for WM.
I think some buy the unit after playing with a number of them, some buy brands, some buy the platform/OS (which overlaps brand for half the market) and some just buy whatever the salesguy pushes on them.
It means that WP7 is probably selling about as well as Android was at the same timeline from release and writing them off as a failure today would be dumb given how much Android grew with 2nd and 3rd generation devices and how the OS improved with another year plus of iterations.
I think it will be more interesting/telling to see the numbers that Microsoft post after Nokia begins to ship phones with WP7 on them. While WP7 is not a popular choice right now, the Nokia partnership definitely makes it interesting to watch.
I am especially curious to see how Nokia leverages the WP7 platform in countries outside of the US because of Nokia's global market share and marketing.
I'm interested too. Nokia hasn't been able to sell many Maemo phones, I'm not sure how having Windows Phone 7 would really improve that. They seem really good at selling cheap phones, but not smartphones. Maybe with Microsoft's marketing muscle they'll do better.
It says "to end users." Do they mean actual buyers in the store forking over cash? It looks to me like Gartner may be estimating this number given their comments about estimating retail inventory a few paragraphs down.
I'd really like to read the original, I am not sure how solid this number is.
Odds are the two numbers are highly correlated - consumer electronics depreciate fast and nobody likes to keep inventory around longer than absolutely necessary.
Unless MS is pulling some really sketchy shenanigans stuffing the channels full of WP7 phones that won't sell (that retailers will push back hard against), "shipping to stores" is a not-terrible approximation of "sold to end users".
I think it's to actual end users as they talk about sales to the channel dropping off, but sales to end users being flat. So they seem to be differentiating between channel and end users.
"We sell a few a day," he said. "People don't come in and ask to buy one like they do with the iPhone, of course, but a handful of folks walk out with one anyway."
I asked him why he thought they went for a WP7 phone instead of an Android or iOS device:
"Honestly, a lot of them are just looking for a phone to make phone calls; they don't seem to care about the operating system. I guess you could say that they buy them by accident."