Huawei dumps Windows Phone
Bad news for Microsoft as it has emerged that Chinese handset makers Huawei has dumped Windows Phone – and won’t be releasing any more phones running Microsoft’s operating system.
The reason? Money, of course – with Huawei’s Richard Yu telling the Wall Street Journal that:
“We have tried using the Windows Phone OS. But it has been difficult to persuade consumers to buy a Windows phone. It wasn’t profitable for us. We were losing money for two years on those phones. So for now we’ve decided to put any releases of new Windows phones on hold.”
This won’t be good news for Microsoft with Windows Phone continually languishing around 2.5% market share – Huawei pulling out definitely isn’t a vote of confidence. Coincidentally, the news comes just days after HTC confirmed it will be producing a Windows version of the HTC One M8.
Of course, aside from simply sales and share, the reason Microsoft should be worried is that this move makes it even more difficult for Microsoft to climb out of the “unvirtuous cycle” it is in – where people won’t buy Windows Phones because there isn’t enough apps, and not many developers will make Windows Phone apps because there aren’t many users.
Huawei will, of course, be continuing to produce Android handsets – like the Ascend P7.
