Look at recent US (and global) adoption rates of Windows Phone [1]. It's increasing, and with Nokia and their Lumia phones it is bound to continue. WP7 is a good OS, and more and more developers are backing it, and consumer satisfaction is excellent, and more and more people are starting to realize all this.
"Market research company Kantar WorldPanel has revealed in the last 12 weeks to mid-April Windows Phone has shown strong growth in the 7 major markets they monitor on the strength of Nokia’s offerings.
In 5 of the 7 markets (Germany, Britain, Italy, France and United States) Windows Phone market share is now in the 3-4% range, up from less than 2% in January 2012. In Germany Windows Phone market share more than doubled year on year to 6%.
In contrast RIM saw its US market share collapse to just 3% from 9% a year earlier, suggesting Windows Phone may have matched or even passed RIM’s market share in USA.
Kantar has predicted in January Windows Phone market share may hit 10% in Europe in the second half of 2012, and it seems to me with more Windows Phones being announced all the time that this may very well be achievable."
1. The "marketshare" that is referenced by Kantar is new sales marketshare, not overall marketshare. Its an important difference to point out.
2. Even with these gains in WP, iOS and Android are seeing similar absolute gains (e.g. in the 2-3% absolute marketshare growth). All WP is currently doing is taking a small piece of the symbian/BB pie
3. Given Microsoft's track record, the problem with WP is how long it takes for them to release a new product. Mango was what WP should have been initially, yet took a year to release. By the time WP8 is out, we will be looking at iOS6 and the Android version AFTER Jelly Bean.
Overall, I believe WP will not go away, but will stabilize at around 5-6% overall marketshare. The problem then is that given Microsofts development costs, they will continue to lose money. (Just look at Bing vs Google and even with 30% of US search shared, Bing loses billions of dollars a year)
"The "marketshare" that is referenced by Kantar is new sales marketshare, not overall marketshare."
The point is that the number of users of WP is increasing at a fairly decent pace. The most important thing is that people are using the phone.
"All WP is currently doing is taking a small piece of the symbian/BB pie"
That seems very difficult to prove and I don't believe there is anything out there that states this. I know several people who switched from Android to Nokia WP phones, and several more that are intending to make the change. This isn't proof necessarily but I could see it happening.
Concerning #3: It's hard to say what the first version should have been. The iPhone didn't have many of the "standard" features either in version 1. The main question is whether the pre-mango version hurt or has helped Microsoft's cause. The fact that they've had the phone out there for a larger period of time I would think would be a positive thing, being that they've had so much more feedback as a result.
"Overall, I believe WP will not go away, but will stabilize at around 5-6% overall marketshare. "
That's reasonable, however I'm curious why you believe this? You don't believe many Android or iPhone users would be interested in switching?
"Market research company Kantar WorldPanel has revealed in the last 12 weeks to mid-April Windows Phone has shown strong growth in the 7 major markets they monitor on the strength of Nokia’s offerings.
In 5 of the 7 markets (Germany, Britain, Italy, France and United States) Windows Phone market share is now in the 3-4% range, up from less than 2% in January 2012. In Germany Windows Phone market share more than doubled year on year to 6%.
In contrast RIM saw its US market share collapse to just 3% from 9% a year earlier, suggesting Windows Phone may have matched or even passed RIM’s market share in USA.
Kantar has predicted in January Windows Phone market share may hit 10% in Europe in the second half of 2012, and it seems to me with more Windows Phones being announced all the time that this may very well be achievable."
[1] http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WmPowerUser/~3/Uofacrd8iKQ/