It goes without saying that Nokia dominates the global Windows Phone market share, the company closed out 2013 with over 92 percent of the entire WP market. Its Lumia brand has become very popular around the world. There aren’t a lot of OEMs that make smartphones powered by Microsoft’s mobile platform, but the company is said to be courting quite a few. Its reportedly in talks with Sony, while India’s XOLO has already announced its intentions of making a Windows Phone device. A number of Chinese manufacturers are also expected to jump on the bandwagon, and Nokia doesn’t seem too concerned.
Nokia’s Viral Oza says in an interview with The Economic Times that the addition of more players will help grow the ecosystem, coaxing more and more developers to come onboard, which would really encourage consumers to go out and actually buy Windows Phone devices. Oza is of the view that there will be no pricing war if new OEMs join the platform, so Microsoft won’t have to worry about margin pressure on its acquisition of Nokia’s hardware business. Later in this quarter, the $7.17 billion acquisition of Nokia’s hardware business by Microsoft is going to be closed, after which Redmond itself will become the biggest Windows Phone OEM in the market.
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