This time last year, Windows Phone 7 was celebrating its one year birthday with the arrival of Mango, and Nokia had just landed on the Windows Phone scene with the releases of the Lumia 710 and 800. While Microsoft was still struggling to find mainstream acceptance for its new platform, the updated software and new hardware options were giving users more reasons than ever before to check out its OS. Now, a year later, Windows Phone 8 has finally arrived with its own assortment of new hardware, and Microsoft’s been trying to draw even more new users over to its side. While we don’t have exhaustive sales figures to examine, Steve Ballmer talked a little about how things are going at Microsoft’s latest shareholder meeting, and it sounds very encouraging.

According to Ballmer, recent sales of WP handsets have been coming in at a rate four times of that from this time last year. Granted, much of that could be existing Windows Phone users upgrading to all the hot new hardware, but we’re also likely dealing with a good number of all-new users.

The big question now is if those sales will continue, or if there was just an initial rush to correspond with the launch of Windows Phone 8. Microsoft is going to need to find a way to keep attracting new users as we get into 2013 if it wants Windows Phone 8 to evolve beyond a niche market.

Source: Dina Bass
Via: Everything WM