Windows Phone maintains its annual growth in Europe but drops compared to the previous quarter

The latest report from Kantar Worldpanel brings not too positive news for Windows Phone. The consultancy has published the distribution of sales of smartphones in the main markets for the quarter that runs from January to March and Microsoft's operating system manages once again to grow in Europe compared to the year past, but their numbers are down a bit compared to the previous quarter.

Although Windows Phone continues to sell more in the five main European markets (Germany, Great Britain, France, Italy and Spain) compared to the same period of 2013, its share of market decreases compared to the previous quarterIf in the three months that ended in December of last year the sales of mobiles with the Microsoft operating system represented 10.3% of the total, in the months that go from January to March that percentage has been reduced to 8.1%.

Similar circumstances are reproduced in almost each of the five countries considered individually. This is the case of Spain, where despite growing from 1.3% to 3% in the annual comparison, its sales share is reduced by 2, 6 points compared to the previous quarter. These are not numbers to be happy about as they imply a slowdown in a territory in which Windows Phone maintained a growth rate higher than that of its rivals.

Despite everything the most complicated situation for Windows Phone continues to be in markets like the United States or China In these countries sales of the system are even lower than those achieved between January and March of last year, exemplifying Microsoft's difficulties in growing in these territories.

According to Kantar analysts, the beginning of the year has been especially hard for Windows Phone due to pressure from other low-end systems , mainly Android. Nokia had defended itself especially well there until the arrival of strong competition from rivals such as Motorola, LG or Samsung. After the acquisition of the devices from the Finnish company Microsoft, it will have to make an extra effort to scratch points again in the sales of smartphones.

Via | TechCrunch > Kantar Worldpanel