On Dec 21 Achim Berg, VP of business and marketing for Windows Phone 7 announced "We are pleased that phone manufacturers sold over 1.5 million phones in the first six weeks, which helps build customer momentum and retail presence." WP7 is of course the major overhaul of Microsoft's phone platform, a completely new OS from the end of line Windows Mobile. It was designed to take on Google's Android and Apple's iPhone.
1.5m sold in 6 weeks is pretty dismal.
Ed Bott Windows columnist for ZDnet defends this number by saying " Still, it’s worth noting that it took 74 days for the original iPhone to hit 1 million units sold, back in 2007"
Well the original iPhone was launched by one carrier in one country with the iPhone at $599.
WP7 was launched on 60 carriers in 30 countries! At launch there are 10 WP7 devices from various manufacturers with their own marketing powers.
As Engadget rightly points out "1.5 million units is a tiny, tiny number when you consider the platform launched on 10 devices on over 60 carriers in over 30 countries. "
The numbers are worse when you consider Microsoft was calculated by a Deustbank Bank analyst to have slated nearly half a billion in advertising.
Microsoft's Achim Berg defends the sales by saying "we're in it for the long run"
Well 1.5m phones at about $15 (very roughly estimating from Win Mo 6 license fees) gives Msft $22.5 m. That's peanuts for a corporation the size of Microsoft. Considering it took half a billion in marketing it's even worse. Apple makes around $500 to 600 for each iPhone (when you add the money from the contracts) so for 1.5m phones it would have made about 800 - 900 m gross. With the various power plays in the Microsoft divisions and the billions earned by Windows desktop and Office how much support will WP7 get if launch sales are so low?
