Sales fall by 76% in the June quarter, says Gartner Sales of Windows smartphones plunged 76% in the second quarter, plummeting from 8.2 million in 2015 to less than 2 million this year, researcher Gartner said today. The dramatic decline was more fallout from Microsoft’s botched acquisition of Nokia’s handset business, the writing off of more than $10 billion and the subsequent decision to back out of the consumer smartphone market. According to Gartner, global sales of Windows-powered smartphones in the June quarter came to just under 2 million units. In a filing with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) last month, Microsoft put its smartphone sales at around 1.2 million. The difference between Gartner’s and Microsoft’s numbers — about 750,000 smartphones — represented what the former believed other device makers sold during the quarter. As recently as May, Microsoft executives again asserted that the company was not giving up on homegrown smartphones, even as they acknowledged that they needed to better focus their efforts. But the decline of Windows smartphones portrayed by Gartner was stunning. In 2015’s June quarter, Microsoft’s operating system powered 2.5% of all smartphones sold. Twelve months later, Windows’ share of sales had collapsed to less than six-tenths of a percentage point. Microsoft had initially pinned hope on Windows on smartphones as the way to grow the operating system’s share on devices of all kinds, even though it was a steep uphill battle against Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS. But Windows never cracked the 5% mark as measured by Gartner and its research rival, IDC. In the end, Windows’ share on smartphones, or on devices overall, became mostly moot as Microsoft turned from that metric and instead focused on growth in its cloud-based services. Related content news analysis Within two years, 90% of organizations will suffer a critical tech skills shortage Along with AI skills, skills in IT ops and cloud development are severely lacking, IDC reports. By Lucas Mearian May 31, 2024 7 mins Generative AI IT Jobs IT Skills news analysis Google partners with Magic Leap on mixed reality development The Magic Leap collaboration follows Google’s partnership to develop mixed reality devices with Samsung last year. By Matthew Finnegan May 31, 2024 3 mins Augmented Reality Virtual Reality Emerging Technology how-to Microsoft OneDrive cheat sheet: Using OneDrive in Windows If you have Windows 10 or 11, you have OneDrive. With this quick guide, you can learn how to sync, back up, and share files in OneDrive with built-in Windows tools. By Howard Wen May 31, 2024 15 mins OneDrive Cloud Storage Windows analysis Apple's mutating supply chain sees winners and losers Shifting manufacturing centers are generating fresh challenges. By Jonny Evans May 31, 2024 5 mins iPhone Manufacturing Industry Apple Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe