Windows Phone beats iOS sales in China Microsoft is claiming something of a PR win over arch rival Apple, after a senior exec reportedly revealed that its Windows Phone devices are outselling the iPhone in China after just two months. Redmond’s COO for Greater China, Michel van der Bel, told Dutch business title Emerce that the platform has a market share of seven …
"Are they super cheap?"
I suspect this is your answer.
Hardware requirements were something like 1 GHz processor and 500MB RAM. Which wasn't that far off top-end when WinPho7 came out, but didn't go up with first 2 updates. They've even cut the requirements with the latest update (Tango). I don't think you can run Android 4 on that.
I suppose Apple could compete on price. If they wanted to. The iPhone 3GS is still on sale, and is over 2 years old. But they're still charging £300 for it! Also, I wonder how well it copes with iOS 5. Given that my iPad 1 became a lot less fluid and reliable with the update to that, and has better specs.
You can run Ice Cream Sandwich on hardware less than 1Ghz/512Mb.
I have a Wildfire running 4.0.4 right now - see http://db.tt/2cnOFbpK for a screenshot
I'll admit it's overclocked, and there are a couple of minor issues that need looking at, but nothing that stops it being used on a day-to-day basis
Just goes to prove that specs aren't everything...
"You can run Ice Cream Sandwich on hardware less than 1Ghz/512Mb.
I have a Wildfire running 4.0.4 right now "
I'm surprised by that. I just got rid of my Wildfire. It wasn't very fast, and stuttered quite frequently. Admittedly it was stuck on Android 2.2, and I didn't jailbreak and upgrade it (as it was a work phone). It was perfectly usable as a phone, other than the couple of times the screen seemed to lock up when trying to answer calls.
I thought ICS needed more juice. Are you running a custom ROM with some bits cut out to help performance?
It's a custom ROM - yes (Erwin's port of the CyanogenMod 9 ROM) - but as far as I can tell all that's been done is to tweak things here and there to persuade the bits that aren't optimal on the Wildfire to get going (although that's probably quite an understatement)
See http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1473344 for more detail
Gio Ciampa,
Thanks for the info. Sadly having replaced my Wildfire, I didn't get to keep it and therefore have fun rooting it, and mucking about on XDADevelopers. I know someone who'd killed their Wildfire's screen, so I spent a few 'happy' hours trying to get their settings ported, then handed mine over. Unless I'm missing something, Android seems to be awfully light on backup/restore options. It took several hours (to be fair I was missing certain crucial info maybe 30 minute's worth?) - but it's a ten minute job on iOS.
Quoting from your link:
"Here a non-official CyanogenMod 9 ROM will be presented which is more or less working on our wildfire. I, and other testers here, must warn you that this ROM is currently in a beta stage. Altough the most important things work, there are serveral things that don't work and the device is slow - animations, typing: everything goes slow."
So fun to play with, but you've had to overclock the processor, and I assume it's not exactly production quality ICS. I really liked the design of the Wildfire, just not he software, or the slowness.
It almost has to be just channel at this stage, because WP7 is still a blip on the web-usage stats for china, in the last quarter iPhone's share of web usage grew fifty times faster than WP7's in the PRC. I guess next quarter we find out if they actually managed to shift any of them.
Anyone remember the reports of Zunes outselling ipods a few years back? It could be just the same press release run through sed.
It is not at all surprising that a new product sells well for a bit, even if it isn't channel stuffing. There will be a few people wanting these devices and who have been waiting for a while. If they all buy at the same time, there is going to be an amazing once-off sales blip.
What counts though is sustained sales over 6 months to a year. There I expect the Zune sory too.
Sounds like channel stuffing...
I doubt the Chinese are stupid enough to want the Windows Phones that Microsoft and Nokia can't shift in the west.
PS. What constitutes news here? Surely this bod needs to back up his claims, or do we simply believe everything Microsoft says? ("there are no endemic problems,with the XBox 360")
iphone not fully 3G capable and IIRC no itunes store in the country.
windows brand new to them but works on 3G
android works on 3G, sideloadable apps, much cheaper smartish phones fromlocal companies.
The winner will be Android, second place will be either of the other 2, ut Apple if they upgrade their phone to work on 3G in China.
Lets be honest here, even the most rabid anti Apple person would be hard pressed to be positive about Windows Phone as an alternative to Android if all things were equal.
The article is misleading. Are the figures being reported:
1) sales of devices over a period of time, over what period?
2) shifting of devices to sellers (aka inventory stuffing) over a period of time, again what period is this?
3) overall market share of sold handsets - if so, over what period of time?
4) overall market share of operating handsets (i.e. handsets actually in use), again covering what period of time?
or
5) something else?
The linked article http://english.analysys.com.cn/article.php?aid=127990 is of little direct relation to this story as it relates to 2011. In other words, this "news" about WP7 in 2012 is just another weaselly worded press release unless some form of figures and concrete numbers are shown.
..........the figures do indicate that WP7 has had a reasonable start in China the comparison with the iPhone should be treated with caution. A lot of the sales of The Great Shiney of Cupertino over there are on the grey-market and figures based on contract purchases probably underestimate it's presence.
I've just got back from 3 weeks travelling around China. Can't remember seeing any Windows Phones. Saw tons of iPhones, and a lot of gigantic Android phones (they really love the Galaxy Note).
Apple stores in some of the big cities (and saw a bunch of clones elsewhere).
Shame as I like WinPho - good luck to it I say, three players better than 2...
"Apple will also take heart from the fact that, as of yet, there are no reports of Windows Phone fanatics in China offering to exchange organs, or even their virginity, for a handset."
This could mean people are less enthusiastic for Windows Phone, it could mean the Windows phones are sufficiently cheap to be affordable without such extreme measures, or it could mean a certain proportion of the populace needs their brain seen to (or a combination of the three).
For those in need of having their brain seen to, I hear prof Gumby is a very well-known brain specialist (or was that bwain specialist?)
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