Windows Phone is on the up

Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 platform is finally starting to gain more widespread approval from smartphone users as new data suggests the number of people accessing Facebook from Windows Phones has shot up in the last month.

Despite generally positive reception by critics Windows Phone 7 has been a bit of a slow starter since its launch just over a year ago in October 2010.

Some analysts have predicted very low sales for Windows Phones, as little as 500,000 for this year, including the new Nokia Lumia range. There are claims that they do not innovate enough and are too expensive.

Others, however, have predicted the platform will do very well indeed with Deutsche Bank estimating sales of two million Lumias in the fourth quarter of this year.

Microsoft’s own chief, Steve Ballmer, previously admitted he had hoped for much better sales of Windows Phone devices since the platform launched – he said he was remaining optimistic at the time and it seems he was right to be because it looks like it’s all kicking off.

Wmpoweruser has been keeping an eye on the number of Facebook users logged in from Windows Phones, something which is quite visible thanks to close integration between Microsoft’s platform and the social networking site.

The Windows Phone blog estimates there are currently around 5-6 million Windows Phone users accessing Facebook regularly.

What’s more, during the two weeks between November 11 and November 25 there was a sharp spike in the number of visible users which Wmpoweruser calculates could mean around 600,000 new users have taken up the platform in that time.

Of course, this most immediately brings to mind the launch of the new Nokia Lumia 800 Windows Phone which featured a prolific and highly visible marketing campaign – it seems likely this is responsible for the jump and we’re looking primarily at a lot of new Nokia users, though no doubt there are a few HTC and Samsung users in there too.

Compared to Android this all might seem like small potatoes but it’s nonetheless an important landmark for Windows Phone, as Wmpoweruser points out:

‘Android activates more than this in one day, but for Windows Phone it is a pretty big deal, and about 3 times faster than sales in the two weeks preceding.’