WP More Effortful in China

When Google and An- droid have extended their arms to the markets of smart home and vehicle-borne devices， Microsoft is still expanding the living space for its Windows Phone （WP）.

The market share of WP has never been higher than 10% since its initial launch. Its performance was even worse in China. However， when China is in the age of replacing 3G with 4G， WP is ready to strike again.

At the end of this June， Chinese company Hisense forecast the debut of first WP smartphone in July， adding a new member in the WP camp of China. Prior to it， Chinese mobile phone manufacturer K-Touch also became a member of WP camp in May.

Many experts believe that the opening of FDD will create the age with explosive development in the 4G market of China. Are Microsoft’s recent mea- sures showing that it wants WP to share this banquet as well.

The Struggling WP

According to the research data published by IDC， the shipment of smartphones in the world is going to hit 1.2 billion units in 2014. 80.2% of them are Android devices， while iPhone and WP phone respectively take 14.8% and 3.5%.

The data from market research institute Kantar shows that WP only took 8.1% of the market in the Top 5 European markets （Great Britain， France， Spain， Italy and Germany）. In the U.S.， WP takes 5.3% of the market， and in Australia， the market share of WP is not higher than 6%.

In the Chinese market， the data from various sources shows that Android smartphone has already taken 80% of the market and is still nibbling away the market share of iPhone and WP. The poor WP just took 1% of the Chinese mobile OS system.

WP entered the Chinese market in 2012. Soon after this Chinese mobile phone companies Huawei and ZTE launched their own WP phones. However， their WP phones share the same fate with other brands the poor performance in the market. In the 1% market share belonging to WP， Lumia from Nokia contributed the three most popular brands as they reap 40% of the market share. Some market experts say that WP started its development later than iPhone and Android， leading to its loss in the competition with them despite its good connection to the Windows OS of PC.

However， after the gradual opening-up of the 4G business， the smartphones will no longer be incompatible with the LTE pattern like before. The Chinese mobile phone market will be braced for a time of intensive changes and upgrade. For the latecomer WP， this might be the only chance to change its fate.

HIsense and K-Touch as New Members

K-Touch’s embracing the WP in May marked the beginning of Microsoft’s campaign to enlist the Chinese smartphone manufacturers.

When he was present in the Trading Fair of China Telecom’s E-Surfing Smartphones in Nanjing， Chen Kaixun， vice president of Hisesne， told the media that his company had already built the partnership with Microsoft， China Telecom and Qualcomm for its entry into the WP camp.

According to Chen Kaixun， Hisense’s first WP-based smartphone that would come out in July will accommodate the WP8.1 system. The cooperation with the three aforementioned companies allowed Hisense to launch a smartphone that can support the CDMA and GSM both. Prior to Hisense， K-Touch also launched two WP8.1-based smartphones.

Apart from the latest WP8.1， the two companies also used the “QRD designed with the reference of Qualcomm”. This February， Microsoft and Qualcomm launched the QRD cooperatively. As said by the two companies， the QRD is able to help to improve the efficiency of developing WP products.

The cooperation with Hisense and K-Touch also shows the progress of the ecological system for WP in China. In the aforementioned trading fair in Nan- jing， Zhang Yongli， global vice president of Microsoft， said that Microsoft hoped to see more all-round cooperation like this to be devoted to the WP ecological system. “Meanwhile， we also hope to work with more companies to explore the more diversified cooperative pattern，” he said.

Where Is the Growth Space？

Many research organizations including IDC and ABI think that there is still a space for the market share of WP to increase in the future. IDC forecasts that WP’s market share is likely to improve to 6.4% in 2018. However， Mi- crosoft is not satisfied with this prediction even if it becomes the truth. The company has fixed the goal of improving the market share to 15% by 2018.

In some emerging and small markets， WP has already seen the success. Reported by the Vietnamese media， the WP devices have already embraced substantial growth in Vietnam as the market share has increased from 16% in 2013 to this year’s 26%. Microsoft’s Belgian branch published the data， showing that the WP’s market share in that country has already increased to 12%， very close to iPhone’s 19% market share.

iResearch’s reports show that WP is more compatible with Office than Android and iOS. This might make WP a better choice for the users who often need to do work on PCs and smartphones. In addition， the small number of users WP has means that WP has a great space for growth compared with the shaped Android and iOS.

After acquiring the hardware department of Nokia， Microsoft spared no efforts in promoting the cooperation with Lenovo， Huawei， ZTE， Hisense and K-Touch. It has also built a relation with China Telecom， one of the major telecom operators in China. As everyone knows， telecom operators serve as one of the main channels for the mobile terminals in China.

The director of terminal department at China Telecom said that the configuration of smartphones are almost the same today and the terminal manufacturers are paying increasingly closer attention to the differentiated services. Even though WP did not perform well in the past， it still ranked No. 3 in the “satisfaction research of users for the mobile OS”， following iOS and Android-based MIUI.