Windows Phone revenue rumored to be under $613 million

How much success is Microsoft having with Windows Phone? It’s hard to tell, since Microsoft has been pretty much quiet about the whole situation when it comes to dishing out the sales figures. However, the folks over at Seattle Pi dug up stats and figures that Microsoft has given here and there, added a dash of estimation and managed to calculate a figure. According to them, Microsoft’s Windows Phone revenue for the fiscal year 2011 is at the very most: $613 million.

While it’s not exactly a small figure, when compared to the iPhone, which made $13.3 billion for Apple just in the most recent quarter alone – it becomes… peanuts. But let’s not forget that Apple makes money from the hardware of the phone as well, unlike Microsoft that only makes money from the operating system. It’s a huge difference in terms of revenues and profit margins (stand-alone software usually has high margins).

To be fair, Windows Phone devices only started shipping late last year, while Apple has established iOS for quite a number of years now. Windows Phone’s major hardware provider (and possible saving grace), Nokia was only announced a couple of months ago, with nary a handset from them to be seen on the market yet. Let’s not forget that the Mango update, which turns Windows Phone into the operating system that it should have been at launch, will be released later this year. With the rapidly increasing amount of apps available in the Windows Marketplace, developer interest is there (the WP7 SDK is great too), and the future for Windows Phone looks bright – let’s just hope it sticks around long enough to see it.

George Wong
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: Microsoft, sales, Windows Phone, Windows Phone 7