Only 674,000 Windows Phone 7 devices sold? Analyst causes online stir

By Tom Warren, on 4th May 11 2:34 pm with 43 Comments

Windows Phone 7 has sold 674,000 devices since it went on sale in late October, according to reports.

The data comes from Russian site mobile-review.com. The site claims Microsoft has only sold 674,000 devices since Windows Phone 7 went on-sale in October. The news has caused an online storm amid speculation that Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform is failing. Some reports claim the sales are “catastrophic” whilst others are calling for Microsoft to come clean.

It’s not immediately clear how Eldar Murtazin made his calculations. The figures appear to be estimates but Murtazin has also tweeted that his sales data has caused a “lot of fuss inside MS” and that Microsoft is currently investigating an “internal leak”. Murtazin is well known for his solid information on Nokia’s Symbian devices. He first reported that Nokia would choose Windows Phone 7 and Business Insider points out he also reviewed Nokia’s Symbian S3 system before it was officially announced.

Microsoft has previously revealed that it shipped 1.5 million units in 2010. The software giant revealed in January that this figure has since increased to 2 million units shipped. Market analysts Canalys also revealed on Wednesday that total shipments of Windows Phone devices in Q1 2011 are around 2 million. Microsoft has failed to provide any more recent updates on device shipments since January 26. If the latest estimations are genuine, which we estimate they are early figures, then it’s time Microsoft comes clean and provides a clear number of devices shipped and devices activated. Until the company makes that choice then speculation will only continue.

  • Anonymous

    Murtazin is well known for his sold information

    Sold should be solid.

    And this guy has some hits, and some real misses.

    • Anonymous

      Exactly! What this article doesn’t say is that he also predicted that Nokia is more likely to go with Android than with WP7….

      He has lost favor regarding Nokia inside info MANY moons ago and he is still bitter about it….

    • Anonymous

      Exactly! What this article doesn’t say is that he also predicted that Nokia is more likely to go with Android than with WP7….

      He has lost favor regarding Nokia inside info MANY moons ago and he is still bitter about it….

    • Guest

      Like saying Nokia would go Android. He was wrong. I knew they were going WP7. I have predicted a number of things in the last year alone, and I know that WP7 will be the third ecosystem.

  • http://twitter.com/JasonSCarter Jason Carter

    It would be 674,001 if Verizon would hurry the heck up with the HTC Trophy!

    • Narcosleepy

      I’m waiting for the HD7 to come to AT&T. Yeah, yeah, I know, but I don’t want T-Mobile service. I may go play with the Trophy first, but the HD7′s aesthetics are just more appealing to me.

  • http://twitter.com/JasonSCarter Jason Carter

    It would be 674,001 if Verizon would hurry the heck up with the HTC Trophy!

  • PZ

    Recently Eldar has been loosing his credibility. I listed to Russian podcasts, where he guest-stars’ and how other people refer to him. He did have some inside contacts in Nokia (maybe still does)… I think Nokia even tried to sue him once (the way he got info on one of the phones), dont remember the details.

    of course he could be right, but I dont care, I just want my WP7 on Verizon (those bastards).
    I’m hoping that WP7 will take off in 2012… cant wait for Nokia WP7 devices (droooooling already)

    • Tonious

      “… cant wait for Nokia WP7 devices (droooooling already)…” too!

  • rojo

    It’ll definitely go up in the Fall. I’m planning to buy a phone when the mango update releases.

  • rojo

    It’ll definitely go up in the Fall. I’m planning to buy a phone when the mango update releases.

  • Rene

    C’mon as if it went that bad. I love my HD7 and I could easily convince 5 people to buy one. Look at the WindowsPhone Facebook site it shows how many people have that it’s around 500.000 and now think about who doesn’t use facebook. Like i don’t use that in China, because it’s blocked. That guy is totally just like another analyst. He’s probably just another iFanboy like a lot of gadget sites and even Engadget. Engadget is awesome but they don’t want that Windows Phone is better and even Josh said that he got money from Apple. MIcrosoft isn’t paying people to say that their product is good. even though somehow weird that the windows phone marketplace grows so fast. it’s the fastest growing marketplace/appstore/market/appworld-ish thing.

    • Guest

      I was one of those who liked your post, but I must correct you that the Facebook figure was 620,000.

    • Nemoc

      Well.. I see actualy over 720 000. ^^

      http://www.facebook.com/?closeTheater=1#!/windowsphone1

    • Guest

      Thankyou. Sorry I saw that somewhere yesterday, so thanks for correcting me.

  • LWSJR

    Tom Warren: Are you not aware that Eldar Murtazin is NOT an analyst? Surely you know this, right? Why would any of your ‘headlines’ mention the analyst unless the information was coming from a bona fide company (i.e. Canalys)?

    • LWSJR

      Also, Tom Warren: Didn’t Canalys estimate that it was ‘Samsung’ that shipped 2million WP7 devices? They did not mention any specific number of WP7 units shipped by LG, HTC, or Dell – so in effect, the number of WP7 devices could be higher provided that these other vendors shipped additional WP7 units in Q1, right?

    • Kevin

      Canalys said… “Samsung shipped some 3.5 million smartphone using its own bada operating system, outperforming total Windows Phone devices sales by more than a million units.”

      So sales of Windows Phone (Maybe including WinMobile as well) was lower than 2.5 Million in Q1. What part of “total Windows Phone devices sales” don’t you understand.

      Tell your boyfriend Ballmer to release the actual sales numbers already so we can all stop speculating, well you’re at it, tell him not to be such a crazy lunatic all the time.

    • http://profiles.google.com/carlosrfonseca Carlos Ribeiro da Fonseca

      “So sales of Windows Phone (Maybe including WinMobile as well) was lower than 2.5 Million in Q1. What part of “total Windows Phone devices sales” don’t you understand.”

      Yup, because HTC, Dell and LG sales also count as Samsung sales.

      Oh wait, they don’t. Sorry, my mistake!

    • http://profiles.google.com/carlosrfonseca Carlos Ribeiro da Fonseca

      “So sales of Windows Phone (Maybe including WinMobile as well) was lower than 2.5 Million in Q1. What part of “total Windows Phone devices sales” don’t you understand.”

      Yup, because HTC, Dell and LG sales also count as Samsung sales.

      Oh wait, they don’t. Sorry, my mistake!

    • Diverse

      Poor Kevin – the Android/Symbian OS fan :( You’re so silly – do you not understand that Samsung is not the only Windows Phone OEM? P.S. Nokia’s decision is final – Windows Phone has been chosen. Salt in your wound….

    • Guest

      Kevin: “I’m pretty sure every phandroid (including myself)”

      He’s a butthurt Google shill who feels threatened by WP so has to troll on blogs.

    • http://www.winrumors.com Tom W

      Thanks for your concerns but you don’t have to be from a “bona fide” company to be labelled an analyst. The Canalys figures, as stated by Kevin, are not from one single vendor.

  • SuNcO

    The LG Optimus 7 is the only one official in México. With no contract it cost $727 US. With contract you need to pay $454 US for the phone and 18 months of $48 US for unlimited 3G. The minimum salary here is $6 US by working 8 hours. Is TOO expensive

  • GP007

    If we’re talking shipped units then I bet as of end of April MS probably has around 3.5m-4m shipped to date. Sold-through might be in the 2.5-3m mark I bet.

    OEMs are also working on the next batch with Mango in mind, so depending on what the sales targets were for MS for this first round we don’t know what is good or bad. The simple truth is that MS can’t boast about numbers close to what iPhone and Android get today so anything they say will look like and be twisted into another fail for them even if it’s not.

  • Mikado_Wu

    I am curious what kind of comission retailers are making on the Andriod Phones. When I went to purchase my Arrive, the salesmen tried for 30 minutes to have me purchase a Evo or Touch Pro.

    I finnaly had to say, rudely, I have and Android and it is a Piece of Sh*&.

    Three weeks later and I am Still THRILLED with this phone……………… I even have 2 iPhone users thinking of changes.

    Be Patient, Marketing is going to win this in time.

    • Guest

      If it wasn’t the store manager, and it was something that was against the rules you should dob them into the store manager/owner/up the chain because it could and would result in less sales for the store.

  • http://azzlsoft.com Rich Miles

    Facebook ought to be really happy because 92% of Windows Phone users are linking their phone to Facebook.

    I don’t read Russian so I can’t say definitively, but the translated version seems to imply the number is for 2010.

  • http://azzlsoft.com Rich Miles

    Facebook ought to be really happy because 92% of Windows Phone users are linking their phone to Facebook.

    I don’t read Russian so I can’t say definitively, but the translated version seems to imply the number is for 2010.

    • Kevin

      His estimates are from October to Dec 31st, 2010. Eldar is trying to estimate sales to customers, he subtracts the amount of phones given for free to Microsoft’s own employees, hence if you were going to calculate the facebook numbers you would have to look at their subscribers from Dec 31st and subtract the Microsoft employees using WP7, that would probably be difficult.

      Also his estimates are the only numbers we have to go on. Microsoft is going through great lengths to try to hide the figures. Every report IDC/Gartner/Canalys will not seperate Windows Mobile and WP7 sales, even the most recent Canalys Q1 report doesn’t specifically state WP7 sales. LG, Samsung, HTC and Dell have all been silent about their WP7 sales figures. All the carriers in the world will not release WP7 sales figures. Microsoft itself will not release sales figures.

      So I will assume Eldar’s estimate is close to accurate until Microsoft proves me wrong. Everybody wake up, the sales numbers aren’t good, you guys can except it or you can’t, if you want the actual numbers ask Microsoft but I don’t think they’ll tell you either.

    • Guest

      “October to Dec 31st, 2010″ is unfair because “It was launched in Europe, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand on October 21, 2010, and in the US and Canada on November 8, 2010, Mexico on November 24, 2010, the PAL region on December 3, 2010, with Asia to follow in 2011.”

      You’re desperate for everybody to think that it’s failed, you can’t see in it has sold 6 million from launch up to March/Q1 and still selling more in the second quarter..

  • Piv

    I don’t care less about the number. Waiting to get 7.5 on a sec generation device.

  • coll@

    I am going to buy it when it comes to Norway (fall), and I don’t think that numbers are true. Anyways, I don’t care.

  • Mark

    Whether the numbers are 674K or 764K, they’re terrible. If they were good, MS would have released them.

    • Guest

      http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_url?doit=done&tt=url&intl=1&fr=bf-home&trurl=http://www.mobile-review.com/articles/2011/birulki-117.shtml&lp=ru_en&btnTrUrl=Translate

      He said _excluding_ employees this was his _estimate_ for _2010_. For 2010, those are good numbers for the weeks it was available. Secondly, this “analyst” may be like others, having a platform they are attached to and skewing figures. You have to look at this long-term.

      NoDo adds more features than Android 1.1 did, and started offering the update before the 4 months, 17 days gap between Android’s 1.1 release which had to fix bugs that shouldn’t have been there in the first place. WP7′s performance is better than Android and iOS _today_, and there’s videos to prove it.

      Almost 16,000 apps only made with C#, without wallpapers or ringtones to pad the store and you see this is much better than Android with only 2,300 apps available by 17 March 2009, since opening 28 August 2008.

      When Apple transitioned to OS X from OS 9, OS 9 was still selling, likewise, that’s what’s happening with WP & WM. Eventually WP will sell more because of a number of factors (one I just mentioned) and it will go up.

      SO please Mark, stop your trolling, Microsoft cannot kill Apple. More is at stake than you realise. If you keep trolling, and WP really does die, which is unlikely because of a number of factors upcoming, you WILL regret having a part in it as iOS will die in approx. 10 years BECAUSE of it.

  • http://twitter.com/abhi1manyu Abhimanyu Jamwal

    the recent reports suggest that wp7 have sold 2.4 million minimum handsets in Q1, 2011 alone, samsung is said to have sold 2 million wp7, considering HTC is selling more than samsung, the total sales should be more than 5 million……..so why is it so hard to calculate?

  • Anonymous

    Quoting mobile-review is a questionable tactic. Endgadget is not touching this one and they love any story that makes Microsoft and especially Windows Phone 7 look bad.

  • Operaghost

    This story is bull. The numbers were estimates for the two months that closed out 2010.

  • http://profiles.google.com/blueandwhite89 Daniel Purdham

    Doesnt matter what the sales are now, when mango is out and Nokia is manufacturing WP7 devices these things will be one of the highest selling phone platforms.

  • http://twitter.com/rajashekaran_s Rajashekaran

    Numbers…crap., give some time and the WP7 numbers is going to outnumber iOs. Remember when android came out it had really $!~! numbers.

    Ppl in the known would buy WP7, i’ve been in the mobile dev environment for the past 4 years and seen every damn platform. The only OS that appeal to me are the WP7 and may be the WebOS (which Palm and now HP are screwing up big time).

    Given good marketing the WP7 is definatly going to be a big hit. Still remember the day i got my phone here in India. There was absolutely no marketing here and i came to know only from the HTC website that the device is launched.

    Worse one of the leading retailers here didnt have a clue on when they would have the device available and finally when they had it available the damn sales guy at the showroom didnt have a clue which is HD7 and which is Mozart.

    Contrary to this when the iPad finally went on sale here all the leading retailers had ads across the papers on launch day.

    So MS if you are reading this, its time to get aggressive not only in US and EU but in all the markets. Sign a big celebrity and u have cracked the Indian market.

  • Guest

    Are people really this stupid?

    Blackberry is king. “The iPhone is screwed.”
    The iPhone is king. “Android is screwed.”
    “The iPad doesn’t have it’s place.”
    Android is king in a few markets with iPhone king in others. “WP7 is screwed.”

    WP7 is the third ecosystem.

  • Guest

    Are people really this stupid?

    Blackberry is king. “The iPhone is screwed.”
    The iPhone is king. “Android is screwed.”
    “The iPad doesn’t have it’s place.”
    Android is king in a few markets with iPhone king in others. “WP7 is screwed.”

    WP7 is the third ecosystem.

  • LuisMatoso

    Can wait till Nokia + WP7 devices. I´m from Portugal and i´m shore in my country it will be a great deal. But besides the deal i think it will be great phones. The reliability of the Nokia hardware and the WP7 software will bring some great, great devices.