Windows Phone sales down by half compared to a year ago

PanARMENIAN.Net - The release of two flagship Lumia 950 handsets appears to have done little to reverse the fortunes of Windows Phone, Digital Spy reports.

In fact, sales figures for Microsoft's flagging smartphone brand are down by more than half compared to this time last year.

The Redmond firm's latest financial results revealed that 4.5 million Windows phones were sold in the last fiscal quarter, down from 10.5 million a year ago.

Fortunately for the computing giant, its Surface, Windows 10 and cloud computing business remain strong.

Microsoft's tablet range grew by 29% year-on-year, reaching $1.35 billion, Office 365 subscribers have hit 20.6 million, and Windows 10 reached 200 million devices in December.

Overall, Microsoft raked in a tidy $6.3 billion in profit and $20.4 billion in revenue during the quarter - but it's showing no signs of cracking smartphones.

Rumours suggest that the company is planning to retire its Lumia range in favour of a Surface-branded smartphone, which could launch later this year.