Windows Phone Usage Stats for December 2015

Microsoft’s new Lumia flagships appear in the usage stats for the first time in December. Will Windows phone fans rally around the Lumia 950 and 950 XL?

this month’s look at Windows phone usage comes as always fromAdDuplex, which bills itself as the largest cross-promotion network for Windows phone and Windows 8 apps. AdDuplex empowers developers and publishers to promote their apps for free by helping each other. And each month it provides a glimpse at which Windows phone (and Windows) devices people are actually using.

This month we see the following trends:

Lumia 950 and 950 XL hit the charts. Microsoft’s new flagships have entered AdDuplex’s usage charts for the first time. “Globally, the Lumia 950 is more popular than the 950 XL,” AdDuplex notes, “but this is not the case in all countries.” I’d love to see more data, but suffice to say that neither device appears in the top 10 charts worldwide or in any country.

Little change in the most-used phones list. Globally, the Lumia 520 retains its crown with 14 percent of all usage. But when you combine Lumia 630 and 635 usage (as you should, they’re the same phone), you get 15.5 percent usage. Meaning that the 630/635 is in fact the most popular Windows phone today.

Microsoft/Nokia still dominates, obviously. And why wouldn’t it? But with 96.97 percent of all Windows phones in use, that number hasn’t gone up for the first time in just about forever. Peak Lumia? (AdDuplex says that Lumia’s percentage of all Windows phones in use has declined by 0.05 percent, but that’s just a statistical anomaly.)

Windows 10 Mobile grows to 8.8 percent of usage. Through a combination of the Windows Insider program and its inclusion on new phones, Windows 10 Mobile jumps to 8.8 percent of the market, up 1.8 percent. Windows Phone 8.1, still dominates, of course, with 77.6 percent of usage. And Windows Phone 8.0 holds steady at 8.7 percent.

Windows 10 Mobile upgrades are in testing. In a promising sign, AdDuplex can see that carriers are testing the Windows 10 Mobile upgrade on phones from “basically every manufacturer out there.” This includes the HTC One M8 and 8X, Samsung ATIV-S and ATIV-SE, LG Lancet, HUAWEI Ascend W1 and W2, and “others,” AdDuplex says.

Unreleased phones. AdDuplex reports a number of so-far unreleased (and unannounced) Windows phones. This includes two Microsoft devices, the 5-inch 720p Lumia RM-115x handsets, and the Lumia RM-1160/1162 handsets with 5.4-inch 768p screens. But it also includes the rumored HP Falcon (5.4-inch 768p), the LG V496 (whichmay be a Windows 10 Mobile tablet), and the Acer 558xWWxGen1, which has a 5.2-inch screen in both 1080p and 768p variants.