Windows Phone Usage Stats for February 2015

Every month, I highlight the state of the Windows Phone hardware ecosystem, using data from AdDuplex to see which handsets are the most widely-used. This month, we see tremendous growth in Lumia 535 and Lumia 635 usage, and AdDuplex looks at what new Lumia handsets it expects to see announced at Mobile World Congress next week.

As you may remember, AdDuplex bills itself as the largest cross-promotion network for Windows Phone and Windows 8 apps, empowering developers and publishers to promote their apps for free by helping each other. And each month it provides a tantalizing glimpse at which Windows Phone (and Windows) devices people are actually using.

Here’s what’s happening this month with Windows Phone device usage.

Lumia 535 hits the top 10. Microsoft’s excellent low-end Windows Phone handset—in my review, I called it a great example of what’s possible in this market segment—has quickly cracked the top 10 in usage, and now commands 3.1 percent of all Windows Phone usage.

Lumia 635 surges, but especially in the US. Thanks no doubt to low-cost offers—you can get a no-contract Lumia 635 for just $50 right now at Amazon.com—the Lumia 635 has seen great growth overall, but is particularly strong in the US, where it jumped 4.9 percent in the month and is now the number two phone, with 17.2 percent usage, nose-to-nose with the Lumia 521, with 17.3 percent.

Low-end vs. low-end. Here’s an interesting oddity of the smart phone market writ large: If you look at the worldwide numbers, 7 of the top 10 Windows Phone handsets are low-end models. But if you look at the rich US market, only 5 of the top 10 are low-end models, and only 3 of them were released in the last year. That said, all of the top 5 Windows Phone handsets in the US are low-end models. (By comparison, all 10 of the top 10 Windows Phone handsets used in India are low-end or mid-level devices.)

Top 10 is all Lumia. No change here, but the top 10 most-often-used Windows Phone handsets are all Lumias. But this might be of interest: 4 of the top 10 were released since Microsoft took control of the Lumia lineup from Nokia.

Microsoft/Nokia jumps to 96 percent of all Windows Phones in use. This month marks yet another high water mark for Microsoft/Nokia usage share, which is actually bad because it shows that the expected diversity of devices in the wake of the “zero dollar licensing” policy that went into effect exactly a year ago has not positively impacted Windows Phone. (On the Windows side, this policy has had a very positive effect, at least in units shipped.)

Windows Phone 8.x is on 89 percent of all handsets in use. With Windows Phone 8.1 hitting 67.7 percent and Windows Phone 8.0 at 21.3 percent. But Windows 10 has already entered the charts, which probably says a lot about both the small size of our community and the enthusiasm of its users: .2 percent of all Windows Phones used in February were running Windows 10.

Mobile World Congress preview. Microsoft is expected to announce a number of new low-end and “affordable flagship”-class (i.e. mid-level) Lumias at Mobile World Congress next week, and AdDuplex’s usage stats bear that out. The first sees five new Lumias being tested in the wild, and two of them sport very low-end 800 x 480 4-inch screens, while the other three are all 720p devices with 5- or 5.7-inch screens. Of interest to US customers, one of these is heading to AT&T, and it looks like the best of the lot: the Microsoft Lumia RM-1062 is a 720p 5.7-inch device, so sort of a mid-level version of the Lumia 1520 phablet (which has a 1080p 6-inch screen). This is perhaps the rumored Lumia 1330.