An early report suggests less-than-stellar sales for Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 7 smartphones in the U.S., though no official numbers are available. But one wireless carrier is upbeat.
“We are encouraged with early demand from customers in stores and online,” said Mark Siegel, a spokesperson for AT&T, who wouldn’t comment on specifics. A spokesperson for T-Mobile, the other Phone 7 carrier, said, “We don’t comment on sales figures.”
Microsoft didn’t respond to a request made through its Portland-based media-relations agency to comment, even in general terms, about smartphone sales.
The Street, citing information from “a market research source who tracks phone sales,” said only 40,000 units were sold nationwide on day one.
Not ‘Flying Off’ Shelves
AT&T carries the Samsung Focus and the HTC Surround, and T-Mobile sells the HTC HD7. All three are $199 with a two-year contract.
An employee at an AT&T outlet in Midtown Manhattan told us Thursday afternoon that the phones “were not really flying off the shelves” and that four or five had been sold since Monday’s launch. An employee at a nearby T-Mobile store said five HD7 models had been sold.
The stakes are high for Microsoft as it struggles to replicate its success in software for personal computers in the fast-paced, super-competitive smartphone market.
Gartner Research last month offered a buzzkill for Microsoft by predicting Phone 7 will bump the software giant’s share of the U.S. smartphone market from 4.7 percent this year to 5.2 next year — followed by a decline to just 3.9 percent in 2014. Gartner’s global numbers for the third quarter had Microsoft in fifth place with a paltry 2.8 percent after Symbian, Android, Apple and Research In Motion.
But all the pessimism about Microsoft’s future may be “jumping the gun,” said Charles King, principal analyst for Pund-IT.
“I’m not ready to call it a flop, especially when…