Windows Mobile sales dive as Android and Apple make further gains in smartphone market

Microsoft struggles to tempt mobile users, but Huawei has bumper Q3

Apple and Samsung had bumper quarters for shifting smartphones in the period from July to September this year, but Microsoft is failing to tempt users over to Windows Mobile and has seen a drop in market share.

Just shy of six million Windows Mobile smartphones were sold during Q3 2015, down from nine million in the same period last year, leading to a drop in mobile OS market share from three percent to 1.7 percent. This could be seen as users awaiting the arrival of Windows 10 Mobile, although analyst Gartner gives a more negative reading.

"Despite the announcement of Windows 10, we expect Windows smartphone market share will continue to be a small portion of the overall smartphone OS market as consumers remain attracted by competing ecosystems," said Roberta Cozza, research director at Gartner.

"Microsoft smartphones will mainly focus on driving value for enterprise users."

While Microsoft is losing share, Google and Apple are celebrating gaining ground. Android accounted for 85 percent of smartphone sales during the third quarter, shifting 299 million handsets, up from 83 percent last year.

iOS grabbed a 13 percent share, up from 12.5 percent last year.

Samsung shifted the most smartphones, at 84 million units compared with 73 million during the same period the previous year, according to the third-quarter smartphone sales statistics from Gartner.

Apple sold 46 million smartphones during the third quarter, up from 38 million last year, boosted by the launch of the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus.

This gave Samsung a 24 percent share of the market, compared with Apple's 13 percent.

Huawei is slowly catching up with Apple, and managed to shift 27 million smartphones over the period, compared with 16 million last year, giving the firm an eight percent market share. This was no doubt helped by the launch of the Huawei P8 and the multitude of low-cost devices the Chinese firm offers.

Conversely, Lenovo dropped from seven percent to five percent market share, based on sales of Lenovo and Motorola devices across Q3 2015 and 2014.

Overall, 15.5 percent more smartphones were purchased in the third quarter of 2015 compared with last year, putting the total figure at 353 million across the three months.