In an interview posted on the company’s website, Microsoft’s corporate VP of Mobile Communications Business and Marketing Group Achim Berg spilled that “phone manufacturers sold over 1.5 million [Windows Phone 7] phones in the first six weeks” since the October launch. I added bold formatting there for a reason. This sales figure is not as effective or all that impressive as you might think. Rather than specifying the actual number of devices sold to end users, they are hiding that sales figure and replacing it with the number of units sold to mobile carriers and cell phone retailers. In a word, this is baloney. I mean, this figure is not incorrect; it’s just that it makes it hard for us to genuinely know how well Microsoft is doing with its new mobile OS. Perhaps they are reluctant to revealing the actual number of units sold to customers because that number isn’t as high as they expected. But Berg’s words counter that logic; he says, “Sales are ramping well as our reputation is growing for offering users a unique experience and are in line with our expectations – especially when compared to other new platform introductions.” So why not tell us like it is? Oh well, all we can do is sit and wait for a celebratory Microsoft press release to help us make sense of the massive 60 carriers/over 30 countries WP7 launch.
