Microsoft hasn’t officially pulled the plug on Windows Phone hardware yet, but things aren’t looking particularly good: during the company’s second-quarter earnings call Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood went over the revenue generated by different parts of the company. When it came to Windows Phone devices she said to expect a decline due to “negligible revenue from Phone.”
And by negligible, she means revenue was down $730 million from the same period in 2016… and Neowin points out that means the company probably made just about $5 million from Microsoft-branded phone sales between Jan 1st and March 31st, 2017.
I’ve seen unsuccessful smartphone crowdfunding campaigns make more than that.
Microsoft is continuing to support its Windows 10 Mobile operating system… to some degree. The company started rolling out the Windows 10 Creators Update for 13 phones this week, including the most recent Microsoft Lumia phones and some other recent devices including the HP Elite x3.
But it’s unclear at this point if Microsoft has any new Lumia devices on the way or if the long-rumored Surface Phone is still under development (and if it is, will it be a Windows 10 Mobile device, or might it be a hybrid device that runs Windows 10 Cloud or even Windows 10 Home or Pro software and works as both a phone and a desktop?)
In other news, revenue from Microsoft’s Surface line of products also dropped by $285 million (26%) in the most recent quarter due to a dip in sales. But it’s likely that this is due to the fact that the Surface Pro 4, Surface Book, and other devices are nearing the end of their lifecycle and potential customers are waiting to see what new Surface products are on the horizon before spending any money.
Author failed to do their homework. Lumia is not owned by Microsoft. NO. There will be no MS LUMIA phones. Windows 10 phone is going away at some point. They have developed a FULL windows 10 for ARM SoCs. That will be the new Surface phone… As its being called. But isn’t called that by MS officially.
Considering the decisions made by Microsoft to be actually user-hostile, especially to their early adopters (lack of phone software updates for no discernible reason, just to name the most glaring) I can honestly say, and with a bit of a spiteful smirk, that they are getting what’s coming to them. Say what you will about android os fragmentation, which is horrible enough, but holding back updates from flagship devices but putting them out on their sub 100 dollar handsets drew the line for me. Screw Microsoft and its “Phone”
Lack of updates? They are releasing updates on the same days they release updates to Windows….
I’m covering the Apple logo in my iPhone with a Windows sticker, so nobody will steal it.
I just spent another afternoon messing around with the elite x3 and the lapdock and the the dock station, although I carried the device around this week.
My two new quibbles: The wifi drops… constantly. Never seen that since before cell phones had wifi capability, wtf is that? And… Pandora cuts out on the dock. Pandora! How do you market an OS that can’t even do streaming music??
Windows Mobile…phone…10.. whatever they call it is an unmitigated disaster…
I tried to get HP’s lapdock and docking station to work with an Android device…. no dice. The whole ecosystem of devices is garbage. I’m typing this on an ancient Android 4.4 device with hdmi out and keyboard/mouse and it’s better than Microsoft’s flagship elite x3.
I am going to hold onto the hardware in case some day possibly it works with other devicews but for now the phone goes into a drawer while I wait for Samsung’s dock station to see how that goes. Microsoft can’t expect to do crap development and make money on a crap product.
And I’ll keep hoping for a 5-6″ phone sized device that runs a desktop OS…
Windows Phone is dead, whats left is being rolled into project Andromeda (aka c-shell) a dynamic UI for Win10 PC’s.
Someone could make an Arm PC that could double as a phone or an Arm PC in the form of a laptop that has phone functions using digital/virtual sim cards.
That’s really how it’s going to play out, with the phone functions reduced to being an app on Windows.
Far from it. Windows phone is turning into Windows 10..
The continuing deprecation of Windows Phone, and the performance of the Office Suite products on Samsung’s new DeX platform, tell me the future for “Windows phone” is services on Android (maybe even a custom MS skin for a tile based interface).