Is Windows Mobile relevant to you now?

With Windows Mobile recently reaching a UK market share of 8.5%, it’s worth looking at the ROI of developing your app for this platform.

UPDATE May 2024: Despite signs of growth during 2015 and 2016, the Windows Phone UK market share has now plummeted to 2.1% in 2017. And in 2024, it dropped to 0.02%. So, for UK audiences, we’re currently not recommending it.

Spot the missed opportunity

Start with how much money you’re missing out on. This might be a function of revenue generated by your existing mobile app each month. For example, let’s say you’re Android and iPhone apps facilitate £1M a month in bookings. Launching a Windows phone version could make an extra £850,000 a month, approx £1M a year. Simple.

Check your audience

On average the UK has 8.5% Windows Mobile users, but remember this varies by city and region. If you’re business is regional, it’s worth looking at the Windows Mobile uptake in your area.

Getting the number of Windows Mobile users in your city or area is not easy, but worth doing before spending the money on the app development. One approach is to do a marketing survey, and track the results. Alternatively, ask you web managers to get some analytics figures to see how many customers are visiting your web site using a Windows Mobile smartphone. Comscore might sell you these figures too.

Costs should be 30%-50% of original cost

If you have existing apps, you’ll need a company to port that app over to Windows Mobile 10. Porting apps is typically cheaper than developing from scratch, because most of the planning, design, innovation and research is already done. So expect to pay 30%-50% of what you paid for your other platform.

We recommend retaining not scrimping on your Window Mobile app. Your app will get better updtake if it is slick, polished and works well. And apps work best when they are designed it for each platform. So, don’t just ask a developer to copy your iPhone app to Windows. Instead, make sure you involve app designers and UX designers. You’ll achieve a better result all round.

Enterprise apps may be worth it too

If you’re building an enterprise app then it might be more about cost saving and employee productivity than actually generating revenue. This only applies if you’re allowing staff to use their own devices (BYOD). In this case, it’s a good time to evaluate the how effective your enteprise mobile apps are, and look to see if it’s worth expanding them onto another platofrm.