What's an iPhone? 14.3m Windows Mobile phones sold in the past six months alone

There might be a world of iPhone hype out there, but if there's anything Microsoft knows how to do, it's fight back with sheer brutal volume -- and it looks like the WinMo juggernaut is just getting warmed up, with sales of 14.3m units worldwide in the past six months. Microsoft says the strong performance is based on sales of over a million BlackJacks and over two million HTC Touch phones, and that it expects to hit 20m WinMo phones sold by June. That's an awful lot of phones -- and with even hotter models on the way, we wouldn't expect to see these numbers slow down anytime soon.

[aaronsheath @ Feb 11th 2008 2:37PM]

And with Nokia and Microsoft getting cosy...

[Johan S @ Feb 11th 2008 4:42PM]

There is no proper GUI in Windows to handle mobile phones. To automatically securely wireless proximity sync. SMS's should be viewable and securely save on the PC, and PC IM's should be accessible from the mobile phones, UMPCS, and portable gaming devices. Same with recent caller lists, multimedia, and contacts. With this Danger acquisition, Microsoft may have the technology to do that .. but they may end up not going anywhere with it.

[Moff @ Feb 11th 2008 4:45PM]

This really is simple:

Blackberry and Microsoft =

[Tom B @ Feb 11th 2008 5:19PM]

You can't compare the two. This is the same argument as Mac vs. PC. A Mac and OS X come bundled together, whereas Windows comes on HP, IBM, Dell, Gateway, Acer, etc. You can't compare 1 company's product to a group of companies who all sell a competing product.

And doesn't this just emphasize how poor Windows Mobile is? How can they outsell the iPhone by so much, yet the iPhone's browser beats it in overall usage?

[Ignatius @ Feb 11th 2008 6:01PM]

Macs would be on more systems if Apple sold the OS, but they don't. Quit splitting hairs.

[Jeff Lewis @ Feb 11th 2008 6:06PM]

@Johan S

First off - WiMo is both a shell and an OS. There are lots of other shells - some that emulate the iPhone even. Much of what you suggest is doable, but is there really any demand for it?

[snitch @ Feb 11th 2008 6:20PM]

well i don't wanna sound like an ass but if the competition is selling 25% in the the US and 3 european countries, compare to the almost 194 countries windows mobile is available, thats not good for windows mobile, not good at all. maybe the writer has not realize iphone is just available in the US and 3 small european countries, its not even available in canada, but it will soon

[LJKelley @ Feb 11th 2008 7:49PM]

On Windows Mobile you can install Opera or other browser, so Mobile IE usage data does not truely represent Windows Mobile users that browse. Secondly the iPhone comes as with unlimited browsing where as Windows Mobile users may use other functions but rarely browse.

Last, how does any company know what sites I visit and what browser I use. Considering Mobile IE probably directs most traffic to the carrier and or Microsoft then such stats can be false considering perhaps iPhone users browse more of the web and Windows Mobile users browse carrier pages and or corporate pages that probably don't publish usage stats.

[Iain @ Feb 11th 2008 11:09PM]

@snitch: firstly, even if the iPhone is accounting for 25% of smartphone sales in the US (though God knows why, it's not a smartphone), it's certainly not doing that in the other countries it's on sale in.

Secondly, I seriously doubt that WinMo devices are available in 194 countries.
And even if they were, criticising MS because their market penetration of Kenya or Turkmenistan or wherever is low is pretty pointless as they're clearly not putting any effort into selling devices in countries like that.

[Garst @ Feb 12th 2008 5:23AM]

@Tom

You can compare the two because Nilay Patel is comparing mobile OSs. Just wait until Microsoft intigrates the Zune software in WinMo. I don't think it's going to be in the next version, but the version after that will have it. Then there will be a few more people other than business workers who use it.

[Brian @ Feb 18th 2008 6:15PM]

@ Garst

Zune in PPC? What?

Are you familiar with Zune? Microsoft doesn't want to affiliate itself with the player. Look a Zune, it doesn't even say Microsoft on it! (It says greetings from redmond... or washington... or something like that) Microsoft didn't even use it's own "secure" standard for the device.

Zune is as integrated into to Windows as iTunes is.

I wouldn't say the new Zune is a bad player, quite the opposite in my opinion, but Zune is supposed to be a completely seperate brand from any version of Windows. I highly doubt

[Ty @ Feb 11th 2008 2:37PM]

I re-read this twice, and my eyes do not deceive me. There is not one snide, anti-M$ comment in here! This is journalism! Hooray!

[Chris @ Feb 11th 2008 2:45PM]

my sweet Engadget... she's all grown up.

*sniff*

[Alan Partridge @ Feb 11th 2008 2:49PM]

Amazing isn't it?

After "That's an awful lot of phones" I was expecting "and a lot of awful phones" but Niley resisted. Hooray!

[KC @ Feb 11th 2008 3:01PM]

Actually, the use of "sheer brutal volume" implies that it is quantity and not quality. So, there is still some anti-MS slant on the article.

[Kyanges @ Feb 11th 2008 5:03PM]

You call that slant? For once, that is truth! Honestly now. :-/ .

[Grant @ Feb 11th 2008 3:06PM]

Thank you! I will continue to read Engadget now that I am reassured there is at least one person on the writing staff not super biased!

[Stimpski @ Feb 11th 2008 3:33PM]

"anti-MS slant on the article", GOOD.

[SteveM @ Feb 11th 2008 3:46PM]

@L M Lloyd: Except of course Apple said that about iPhone sales in the USA! You know, the only market where the iPhone had been out long enough to get sales figures for two quarters. These figures for windows mobile devices are WORLDWIDE sales figures. So Apple are not lying in any way, you're just comparing figures from two totally different sources. Why is this so frickin' hard to understand?

And no, I couldn't give a monkeys who 'wins' the smartphone market although I am glad that Apple have come in and shaken things up a bit. I just wish people would take the time to understand what they are commenting on before they start attacking the 'enemy'.

[ssuk @ Feb 11th 2008 3:57PM]

A drop in the ocean, unfortunately...

[caleb @ Feb 11th 2008 5:21PM]

Engadget are such Apple Fanboys! Does every post have to have an Apple product in the title!

[fahnboi @ Feb 11th 2008 5:34PM]

caleb, i really hope that's sarcasm that you think their jab at an iphone is actually fanboyism. very very sad. now go outside and play, the weather's been great.

[Darkest Daze @ Feb 12th 2008 12:23AM]

Apple always compares Apple to PC's, so why can't we compare Apple to WM devices. If it's ok for Apple to compare their single company to every other PC maker, why can't every WM maker compare themselves to Apple?

[caleb @ Feb 12th 2008 9:24AM]

Sarcasm? Jab? Fahnboyism? Me?

Noooo....

[Scott @ Feb 12th 2008 10:39AM]

Conversely I've never seen such rabid PRO-Microsoft based comments on any other site. It really doesn't jive with the amount of tech sites I read. Makes me wonder if Engadget is on Microsoft's astroturf list. I don't think I'm being paranoid when the FACT is that they've done this before: http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=microlob23&date=20010823

[T-Bone @ Feb 11th 2008 2:38PM]

That's like GM saying it is better than Ford because its many brands have sold more cars total than Ford has sold F-150s.

[chefjoeardee @ Feb 11th 2008 2:41PM]

I came to say exactly that pretty much. iPhone = product. WinMo = mobile OS. Apples and oranges Engadget.

[Ty @ Feb 11th 2008 2:41PM]

Forgive me, for I'm a German car guy, but...

Isn't everyone better than Ford?

[something @ Feb 11th 2008 2:58PM]

Where's that common sense logic when people claim that the iPhone > Windows Mobile?

[Saad Rabia @ Feb 11th 2008 3:01PM]

Did you read the article well? The writer said: "14.3M Windows Mobile phones sold" not "14.3M Windows Mobile OS's sold". The article mainly explains how healthy the Windows Mobile market is, people are still preferring it, and I bet that at least half of the people who bought the iPhone are "new" in the smart phone market, meaning that they did their shift from regular mobile phones to the iPhone, but only few did a shift from Windows Mobile phone to iPhone. Many of the people around me feel that whenever you go "Windows Mobile" you are going to stay "Windows Mobile", simply because it has stuff that iPhone dreams of getting adding the fact that iPhone's software is owned by one company unlike the Windows Mobile market which has many options hence creating good and healthy competition. In the other hand, iPhone is just an enhanced experience of a mobile phone; a very good evolution for mobile phones.

All in all I really believe based on numbers and my own idea on this whole thing that Windows Mobile will always be the preferred OS for business people, business as in real work, as in media or finance, including graphic designers like me and my coworkers; iPhone is good for my young brother and my sister who wants to show of in front of their friends, I mean I seriously haven't seen anyone around me using the iPhone for what it was made for, and this means one thing: iPhone's software is good, but it is selling for the wrong people or the people it wasn't meant to be sold for which also means that people who prefer smart phones are not buying the whole iPhone thingy yet, including me.

What do you think guys? :)

[clambake @ Feb 11th 2008 3:13PM]

I don't know where you're a graphic designer there Rabi, but pretty much everybody I work with is going to the iPhone. Creative professionals have never been able to stomach M$ and the second the iPhone came out it meant salvation. Now the only time I even see an M$ product is when I walk past the guy that makes the plane and hotel reservations for people. Thank god.

[L. M. Lloyd @ Feb 11th 2008 3:16PM]

Sure, that would be a fine argument, if it weren't for the fact that Apple is flat-out lying, and claiming that the iPhone is selling better than all Windows Mobile devices combined. Remember, it was Steve Jobs who got up and said that Apple was second only to RIM in the smartphone market. He claimed that the iPhone had far outsold all Windows Mobile devices combined. Obviously that isn't the case.

[Saad Rabia @ Feb 11th 2008 3:31PM]

You have a very solid point right there L. M. Lloyd, kind of an eye opener.

clambake, I'm not a hotel nor a plane reservation guy! I'm a worker who like the idea of having Microsoft Outlook Mobile, Office Mobile, Exchange ActiveSync in my smart phone and some other features like video recording and 3G, nothing more than that! Now if Apple had their OS out their for companies to use on their hardware I would love to see the competition in hardware releases, but, right now at this point I can't but hate the idea of having on mobile phone that does half of what my Windows Mobile phone do without naming brands. The question here: Can I get all of the things I mentioned anytime soon from other companies for the sake of price competition and features?

[Chad @ Feb 11th 2008 3:36PM]

Rabia,

I am a long time user of mobile devices and there is very little I like about windows mobile. Windows mobile is capable of doing lots of things but it does very few things easily. The trade offs made between feature creep and the devices small size meant that easily understandable menus and ease of use features got paired down. The fact that to close a program to free up memory you have to go into the settings menu is insane! (This may have been changed in version 6 which I have not tried).I was underwhelmed by the launch of the iPhone especially given it's price tag but last week I came across a good deal on an iPod Touch and decided to see what all the hubbub was about. I instantly knew why it was so popular. The fact that Apple locks the device down application wise is definitely a minus for non geeks who can't or don't want to jailbreak their devices but I am hopeful they will loosen this requirement soon. More hopeful than Microsoft making an interface I can use. BTW the Touch is my first ever Apple product so no I'm no fanboy....well, except maybe for my Blackberry 8800!

[chefjoeardee @ Feb 11th 2008 3:38PM]

Saad Rabia. You're missing the point. Windows merely made the OS while the phone companies themselves made the product; this is a very large defining point to this article which makes the iPhone vs. WinMo argument nearly pointless as they are not the same thing. Close, but not the same thing.

As for the argument that the iPhone is merely something to be used by kids with "something to show off", that's a personal opinion. Mine regarding the matter is that I don't believe you have used one, or if you have not nearly long enough. To each his own though.

[Hawkman @ Feb 11th 2008 3:51PM]

L. M. Lloyd - you'll remember that Steve carefully referred to North American sales, whereas this is talking about worldwide sales. The iPhone is both less available and less popular outside America.

I'm yet another guy who came here to say how silly the comparison is; the iphone is a single model, but we're talking about hundreds of different WinMo models here. When you think of it like that, it's actually pretty embarrassing. For individual manufacturers, anyway.

[Saad Rabia @ Feb 11th 2008 3:48PM]

You have a good point there Chad, I mean Windows Mobile seems to be geek material, haha, and I'm proud of being one my self. :p

Yeah, I think it all comes to life style, I mean seriously a successful man could use iPhone or a Windows Mobile device, at the end it all comes on how well you are going to use the features you bought in the device you chose. I want to see how Sony is going to tweak the Windows Mobile system; from what I've seen it seems to me that having a stable and nice Windows Mobile experience could be delivered by the device makers them selves, which is kind of cool! I also want to see what Apple software developers will bring out next month, I mean we could see an open source Office application inside the iPhone, which could also mean me shifting to iPhone, hehe, Why not? I will buy the better device. Let us wait and see. :)

[Yours Smugly @ Feb 11th 2008 3:49PM]

@ L. M. Lloyd: no lying there. Jobs talked about the American market. Yes, more iPhones sold than MS Mobile phones. The world is a different thing. All in all it's pretty much ridiculous to compare the ubiquitous MS Mobile phones with the iPhone, which to date is only available in a few countries.

[Tim @ Feb 12th 2008 2:20AM]

You are correct sir!

[Kamokazi @ Feb 11th 2008 4:49PM]

No, it's not silly to compare iPhones sold to all Windows Mobile devices sold, just like it's not silly to compare all Macs to all PCs sold. You're comparing ALL DEVICES THAT RUN ONE OS versus ALL DEVICES THAT RUN ANOTHER OS. It just so happens that the only device with the iPhone's OS is the iPhone (and don't try to start the whole 'it runs regular OSX' argument).

What you're trying to do is spin the numbers so that you can say the iPhone outsold XXX phone, and immediately infer that Apple > Microsoft. That's as silly as saying the 13" MacBook outsold the HP Pavilion dv2200t. Of course it did. HP's consumer laptop line alone has more different models than all of Apple's computers. If there were several varieties of the iPhone(other than capacity), total sales numbers would still be similar to what they are now (unless there were cheap models-100 or less).

[Mark @ Feb 11th 2008 4:54PM]

ya, I'm a student and everyone I know who has an iphone still oogles at my phone's ability to use one note to take notes in class. (I have an HTC Touch)

[L. M. Lloyd @ Feb 11th 2008 5:02PM]

To everyone claiming that it is ridiculous to compare Windows Mobile to the iPhone, where are all of you when just about every article on this site claims that every new Windows Mobile device is a copy of, or response to, the iPhone? Seriously, Apple had more press for the iPhone than I have ever seen for any other model of phone ever, and yet it only sold roughly twice as many units as HTC's most popular model, even though hardly anyone even knows who HTC is. You can backpedal all you want, but that doesn't change that the narrative in the entire tech press for almost a year now has been that the iPhone was going to be the "game-changing" device that would have all the phone manufacturers running for cover, as they realized they couldn't compete with the amazing Apple technology that was light years ahead of what they could ever hope to bring to market.

I'm sorry if it doesn't favor your beloved company, but this is how mobile market share is always talked about. No one talks about the success of the Nokia n95 vs. the Blackberry 8800 vs. the Treo 700. No one, not even your hero Steve Jobs. It is discussed as Symbian vs. RIM vs. Windows Mobile vs. Palm. You can make all the "but it is just one model vs. hundreds of models" argument all you want, but that doesn't get the iPhone any bigger market share. The fact of the matter is that no matter how much you love it, the iPhone is a flop. No matter how much the press gushes about it, the sales figures are weak, and in light of the unprecedented media blitz it had, actually kind of pathetic. Those Apple figures saying it is "#2 in America" are based on some completely cooked definitions of what constitutes a smartphone, and even then are somewhat dubious. Any independent analysis of the smartphone market ranks Symbian as #1, Windows Mobile as #2, RIM as #3, Palm as #4, and the iPhone down there in the "others" category with the Sidekick. Maybe that will change in the future, but if you want to declare victory before your team has even met their own lackluster sales targets, you have to expect to get knocked down a peg when the actual big guys in the game release their figures.

[Ty @ Feb 11th 2008 5:26PM]

L.M. Loyd is my hero.

[T-Bone @ Feb 11th 2008 6:58PM]

"Seriously, Apple had more press for the iPhone than I have ever seen for any other model of phone ever, and yet it only sold roughly twice as many units as HTC's most popular model, even though hardly anyone even knows who HTC is."

I see HTC phones all the time but I didn't know HTC made them until recently because they don't say HTC. You said it yourself, the iPhone is outselling even HTC's most popular device. Comparing sales of the same product type is the only valid comparison and, as much as it irks some people, Apple is doing very well with the iPhone.

[Andrew @ Feb 11th 2008 7:31PM]

the iPhone has only been out for 6 months and internationally in only 3 other markets for 3 months. 4M iPhones to date for a brand new product is pretty damn impressive to say the least especially given the carrier exclusivity deals.

It makes no sense to compare that to all WiMo phones sold worldwide in the last 6 months - its not a level comparison. You can either look at the sale of WiMo phones for the same period of time for the same markets the iPhone is sold in or wait a few years until the iPhone has reached the level of product life cycle maturity that the WiMo phones have now.

WiMo phones have been around for years and have never appealed to anyone outside of tech/business. Thats why companies like Helio exist and thats why at the end of the day ordinary consumers are going to buy iPhones. They are easier to use and offer more useful programs that they can actually operate without being a tech geek.

[owl @ Feb 11th 2008 2:40PM]

I hear they ship a lot more copies of Windows XP and Vista than Apple does OS X as well.

Which means...well, nothing really, other than they ship a lot more products.

[James L @ Feb 11th 2008 2:48PM]

The rule is usually the better product the more it will sell

[clambake @ Feb 11th 2008 3:06PM]

HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHH!!!!!! You know, because the Ford Taurus is such an incredible car! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!! And Titanic is the best movie ever made! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! And everyting in Oprah's bookclub is genius! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!! Funniest comment ever bar none.

[Bender Bending Rodriguez @ Feb 11th 2008 3:07PM]

HP and Dell ship a lot more $400-600 notebooks than they do $1000+ notebooks with modern hardware. That doesn't mean the el cheapo devices are better.

[josh @ Feb 11th 2008 3:10PM]

"The rule is usually the better product the more it will sell"

Whose rule, because it doesn't seem to reflect market reality? What determines success tends to be market strategy, pricing, and a host of considerations. What is better rarely equals success (though if the product is crap it has a much higher chance of failure). The amiga was WAY better than the mac for example, but that didn't really matter.

What one could argue is that making just the software platfrom will allow a company to reach more customers than making the whole widget, and MS has generally always shown that to be true over apple (though with the noted exception of PMC vs iPod). What causes MS to sell more is their stategy rather than the quality of their product (this isn't me commenting on the quality of WMo).