How many Windows 7 phones have Microsoft really sold?

The new Microsoft Windows Phone 7 launch has not went according to plan, according to many analyst reports. Microsoft claim they have shipped 2 million units to carriers, but no one is delivering actual sales figures.

When Microsoft are questioned on their sales figures, they have spoken to the press and said that they never have made a habit of releasing comprehensive sales numbers for Windows Mobile, the previous platform to Windows Phone 7.

This is the polar opposite to Apple and Google who are more than happy to detail sales figures whenever asked. Google's CEO Eric Schmidt has said that they are activating over 200,000 units per day and Apple CEO Steve Jobs was keen to point out that they were activating even more, at 270,000 per day. Microsoft on the other hand claim they have shipped 2 million units since the launch. It sounds impressive on paper, but this pales in comparison when compared to the 200,000+ units claimed by Google and Apple.

In December Microsoft had said 1.5 million Windows 7 phones were shipped. A month later on the 26th January 2011, they said it was 2 million. Thats only half a million shipped to carriers in the space of a month, and we don't even know how many have been sold. If they sold all of the 500,000 phones in January, that translates to under 20,000 activated a day, and thats a ‘perfect world' assessment.

Microsoft are remaining tight lipped on the sales figures and when asked about the possibility of poor consumer sales figures they just pointed to research that 93 percent of Windows Phone owners are ‘satisfied' or ‘very satisfied' with their devices.

An executive from LG Electronics, a Microsoft smartphone partner told the blog Pocket-Lint that the Windows 7 launch was ‘less than we expected'. James Choi, a marketing strategy and planning team director said: “We strongly feel that it has a strong potential even though the first push wasn’t what everyone expected.”

KitGuru says: Is this another disaster for Microsoft? Should they just stick to the Xbox gaming console and operating systems?

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