Windows Phone Usage Stats for March, Plus a Peek at Windows 10 Mobile Upgadeability

In this month’s peek at Windows phone usage, AdDuplex also supplies an interesting peek at how many Windows phones out in the wild can actually be upgraded to Windows 10 Mobile. Spoiler alert: It’s basically an even split.

As you may know, AdDuplex 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.

Here are the highlights from this month’s report, starting with the upgradeability information.

Exactly half of all Windows phones in use can be upgraded to Windows 10 Mobile. According to AdDuplex’s figures, 50.4 percent of all Windows phones in use “are capable of running Windows 10 Mobile,” while 49.6 percent are not. I assume by “capable” they mean “are on the compatibility list that Microsoft previously supplied.”

Only a small percentage of Windows 10 Mobile-capable handsets are already running the new OS. 15.2 percent of the handsets that can get the Windows 10 Mobile upgrade are already running the new OS, meaning that about 85 percent of capable phones are still awaiting the upgrade. This makes sense: Windows 10 Mobile was just “released,” and we still have carriers to wait on.

Looking at the more usual usage data….

Lumia 640 experiences strong growth. While the Lumia 630/635 combine for 15.5 percent of all usage, the Lumia 640 has grown almost 1 percentage point in the month, with 7.3 percent of usage. That’s good for fourth place behind the 630/635, Lumia 520 (12.1 percent), and Lumia 535 (12 percent).

Still no movement on the new phones. The Lumia 950, 950 XL, 550 (and 650, just released) are nowhere to be seen on the usage charts.

Microsoft/Nokia usages grows again. Microsoft continues to dominate Windows phone usage with 97.21 percent. No other companies even matter, and only one—HTC, with 1.05 percent usage—even hits single digit usage.

Windows 10 Mobile is number two. With 7.7 percent of usage, Windows 10 Mobile pulls ahead of Windows Phone 8.0 (7.4 percent) for second place. Windows Phone 8.1 accounts for over 81 percent of all Windows phones in use.