In the first year after the launch of Apple’s iPhone they sold about 15 million handsets. Within three years they have sold over 50 million. So what makes Microsoft think they can sell 30 million Windows Phone 7 handsets by the end of 2011?
The figure, as reported by NeoWin was shown at this week’s ReMIX event in Paris and they agree that it’s “ambitious for any platform”.
Windows Phone 7 doesn’t even hit the shops until later in the year and, according to what we’ve seen and read, isn’t finished yet.
Microsoft will be pinning their hopes on two things, their hardware partner network and the network operators.
With the iPhone Apple wanted exclusivity, with everything, and locked themselves into three year partnerships with a single operator in each country. This would be severely limiting as it’s not only the handset that swings people’s purchases but their experienced with the networks on things like billing and coverage.
By bringing in partners, as Microsoft has always done, they can get around this and almost immediately have the operating system on phones from a variety of manufacturers and on a variety of networks. In essence Microsoft just have to the put the OS out there and watch their partners and networks do all the competition stuff for them.
Once the OS has been licensed by a phone manufacturer Microsoft’s worrying is pretty much finished. It’s then down to that phone manufacturer to win consumers over by touting how much better their phone is that all the others from different companies, and the networks to prove that the phone works better with them than anyone else.
So can Microsoft really ship 30 million Windows Phone 7 handsets in the first year? This is still a big ask but the huge advantage their partner network gives them over the approach taken by Apple, it’s an achievable big ask.
