You ve got to hand it to tech research firm IDC — When it comes to forecasting the smartphone market, the company has been doggedly determined in its optimism about Microsoft s Windows Phone software.
No matter how Windows Phone has done in the market, IDC has consistentlypredicted that better days are ahead. It s also had to consistently revise its expectations in the face of the reality.
Tuesday provided yet another example, when the research firm issued its latest forecast of smartphone sales. The headline numbers in the report were about overall shipments — IDC expects the market to grow more slowly this year and the following four years than it previously predicted, thanks to weakening demand in China.
But the number that jumped out to me — because I ve focused on it for a while now — was IDC s forecast for Windows Phone. The tech firm is now predicting that Microsoft s smartphone operating system will ship on 3.6 percent of the smartphones made in 2019.
That figure represents another concession to reality. As recently as May, the firm was predicting that Windows Phone devices would comprise 5.4 percent of the market four years from now. So, as its done repeatedly over the last five years, IDC was lowering its expectations for Windows Phone in the face of poor demand for the software.
Of course, that s not the way IDC spun things. In its press release announcing the new forecast, the company stated that its view that Microsoft/Windows Phone will remain a marginal challenger at best has not changed.
Sure. But as recently as January of 2014, IDC was predicting that Windows Phone would account for more than 7 percent of the global smartphone market by 2018. So, the company s view about just how marginal Windows Phone will be has actually changed quite a bit.
And this latest forecast reduction might be IDC s most significant yet, because it finally brings Windows Phone s predicted market share down to a level that at least somewhat correspond with its current share of the market, which was about 2.5 percent in the first half of this year, according to IDC arch-rival IDC. Given that IDC originally forecast — based on who knows what — that Windows Phone would go from 0 percent of the market in 2010 to more than 20 percent in 2015, 3.6 percent in 2019 from 2.5 percent today seems reasonable, at least at first glance.
But if you know anything about the smartphone market, even that reduced number seems wildly optimistic, because it implies that sales of Windows Phone devices will significantly outgrow the broader smartphone market in coming years. IDC forecasts that the software will steal share from Apple s iOS over that time period. Yet there s no sign at all that any significant segment of consumers are eager to have Windows Phone devices over iPhones
Windows Phone s poor performance in the market thus far is largely due to the fact that consumers and carriers on the whole have never shown much interest in the software and the few manufacturers that half-heartedly supported it mostly abandoned it when Microsoft bought Nokia s phone division, which was the dominant maker of Windows Phone devices. Those trends have shown no signs of changing.
And, in fact, things have gotten worse for Windows Phone. Earlier this summer, Microsoft announced it was scaling its phone manufacturing operations and laying off thousands of its former Nokia workers. Although the company plans to continue making Windows Phone devices, it doesn t plan to offer nearly the range or number that it had before. If even the maker of Windows Phone is pessimistic about the software, it s hard to believe that other phone manufacturers will be more bullish on it or that they ll make up for lost sales.
Still, you ve got to give IDC credit for this continuing this dance. Its hard to remain optimistic when things keep turning out worse than you expected, even as you ve lowered your expectations. Just don t be surprised if the firm repeats itself again in a few months when it issues its next forecast.
Photo: Microsoft Lumia Lumia 540 Dual SIM (courtesy of Microsoft).
