The latest Mobile Subscriber Market Share report from ComScore shows Microsoft's average share of smartphone subscribers in the United States has fallen yet again, from 5.7 percent in the three months ending August 2011, to 5.2 percent in the period ending November 2011. It's a significant hit, specifically because ComScore measures the total number of subscribers, not the number of new smartphones purchased, and the number of Windows Phones purchased in the United States is approaching oxymoron territory.
A Microsoft planning graphic leaked last week has brought a ray of hope to the Microsoft faithful, but the situation for Windows Phone is bound to get worse -- much worse -- before it gets better.
And the downward trend through the end of November pales in comparison to what happened over the holidays, when the market had Android and iPhone written all over it. Windows Phone didn't even rate a cameo as Ghost of Christmas Past.
Back on Dec. 21, Android head Andy Rubin tweeted that Google was activating 700,000 Android devices a day. One week later, Andy tweeted that Google had activated a total of 3.7 million new devices over the two-day period Dec. 24-25.
We haven't heard officially from Apple, but a company called Flurry Analytics claims to be able to track total activations for Android and iOS, via mobile applications that use their services, and it pegged the total activations for both platforms combined at 1.5 million per day during December, peaking at 6.8 million on Dec. 25. Give or take a bit, Flurry Analytic's numbers indicate iOS and Android activations were in the same ballpark in December, and all together Android and iOS added 50 million or so new devices.
