Windows Phone Usage Stats for March 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 the continued growth of the Lumia 630 and the continued dominance of low-end devices.

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.

Low-end rules. Nothing new there, of course, but low-end phones make the bulk of the top ten most-frequently-used Windows Phone handsets, with 8 of those top 10 devices. The only two high-end holdouts, the Lumia 920 and 925, are years old now. And the low-end devices are cementing their lead, too: AdDuplex notes that all six of the top 10 phones—all of which are low-end devices—gained share this month.

Lumia 630/635 closes in on the top spot. The Lumia 630 hit double-digit usage share, 10 percent, for the first time this month, and if you add in 635 usage, which you should, the total comes to 15.5 percent. Only the Lumia 520 (24.5 percent and falling) is more popular. If rumors of a 1 GB Lumia 63x are true, I expect this device to hit the number one spot sometime in 2015.

Lumia 5xx/6xx lights up the US market. Microsoft’s Lumia 63x (32 percent share), 52x (24.3 percent) and 53x (6.5 percent) dominate the US market. Indeed, all of the top 10 are Lumias, and all of the top six are low-end devices. AT&T is by far the biggest carrier, with 32.3 percent share, but when you add in Cricket, you get to 53.8 percent … dominance. T-Mobile is at 18.1 percent, and Verizon stutters in to 12.3 percent.

Nokia/Microsoft grows again. When you own 96 percent of a market, it’s hard to imagine growing. But Nokia/Microsoft did, with 96.4 percent usage in March. Only HTC has more than 1 percent usage share among the also-rans.

Windows Phone 8.x is now on 91.5 percent of all handsets. And just Windows Phone 8.1 is 71 percent. Those are iPhone adoption rates for the latest version of the OS. (Windows 10 usage on phones fell, but that’s probably because the initial and only build is unusable and works only on a tiny subset of available phones.)

English speaker usage. For the first time, AdDuplex is looking at just those phones that are set to an English user interface. It’s not hugely different from the worldwide chart from a phone mix—8 of the top 10 are low-end devices—but we do see fewer older devices (Lumia 52x).

Sadly, there’s no info about new mysterious devices in testing. They’re on to us.