Microsoft: 40 percent smartphone market in hands in 2012

Microsoft wants to control at least 40 percent of the smartphone market by 2012. Currently, Windows Mobile is still lagging behind the competing Symbian OS worldwide.

The ambitious goal of the software giant was stated by Eddie Wu, managing director of Microsoft’s OEM-embedded devices division in Asia. Although Windows Mobile has a global market share of about thirteen percent and Symbian has almost seventy percent, Microsoft is recording high growth figures for its mobile platform. In the past fiscal year, 11 million phones with Windows Mobile were sold and in fiscal year 2008, which ends June 30, this number is expected to grow to 20 million smartphones.

Microsoft thinks, among other things, that it can conquer market share from its competitors with ‘iPhone clones’ such as the HTC Touch Diamond, Wu tells Infoworld know. High Tech Computer is currently Microsoft’s largest partner in terms of its mobile OS.