Microsoft’s mobile market share in India is taking a nosedive ever since it bought Nokia’s hardware division. This is no doubt an enormous problem, which is why the company is taking steps to bring it to an end. The company showed how serious it is about the Indian market earlier this year when Microsoft employees showed up in trucks across 400 cities in the country. The aim of this exercise was to challenge consumers to test their current device against a Windows Phone handset.
Microsoft Knock Out Challenge
We’ve seen these type of promotions several times before by Nokia, Microsoft, and other companies. The thing is; we’re not certain if it works because no one has come out and testified.
From what we’ve come to understand, Microsoft calls its challenge, the “Knock Out Challenge.” It tasks consumers to perform certain tasks on their handset to see if they could do it faster than a person doing a similar thing on a Windows Phone 8 handset.
It is all about showing the versatility and power of the Windows Phone operating system. However, with Windows 10 Mobile on the horizon, we fail to see how everything the company did in the past matters today.
A year ago, Microsoft had a decent 13.4 percent of the mobile market in India. Today that has trickled down to 9.8 percent, and it is not growing, mainly because the company is focused on its new operating system instead of releasing handsets consumers need.
“The big shift that we are making when it comes to phones is to not think about phones in isolation,” said Ajey Mehta, managing director, Microsoft Mobile Devices (India) in an interview. “Now with Windows 10, we are looking at providing users value with good apps as well as a personalized and productive experience. We are looking at providing one unifying platform, one unifying experience (across devices).”
Microsoft may have one more chance to carve a meaningful spot in the mobile marketplace with Windows 10 Mobile. If it fails, then we might very well see the end of the company’s hardware desires in mobile.
