Samsung Says Windows Phone Isn’t Selling Well

Samsung boss J.K. Shin has claimed that smartphones running Windows Phone are not selling well and that the company prefers to release devices running Android.

Shin made the admissions in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, in which he also discussed the company’s mobile aspirations for the coming year.

The company hopes to ship in excess of 400 million smartphones in the next 12 months and has high hopes in the enterprise market, he said. However it appears as though Windows Phone will not be central to that strategy.

Samsung Windows Phone woes

“Smartphones and tablets based on Microsoft’s Windows operating system aren’t selling very well,” Shin told the US newspaper. “There is a preference in the market for Android. In Europe, we’re also seeing lacklustre demand for Windows-based products.

“We like Android and we plan to continue our good relations with Google.”

Samsung has released a number of Windows Phone-based smartphones since the Microsoft platform was launched in 2010, including the Samsung Galaxy Ativ, which was one of the first to run Windows Phone 8.

Its apparent lack of success with the platform has not discouraged it from other efforts to diversify beyond Android: Samsung has plans to release a smartphone running open source operating system Tizen in the third quarter of 2013.

“Our strategy has always been to work with multiple operating software companies,” Shin is quoted as saying. “There are different needs from our customers and the market for third-party OS.”

Samsung unveiled its new flagship smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy S4, at an event in New York last week. The Android-based device will be released in the UK on 26 April.

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