Today Gartner released their mobile phone sales figures, wherein they say 1.6 million Windows Phone’s were sold to customers. Back in December, Microsoft announced that 1.5 million Windows Phone’s were sold to retailers, but not necessarily to customers.

This of course has led to the usual fear, uncertainty, and doubt to be spread about how much of a failure Windows Phone 7 is, and that Microsoft should just give up, go into a corner, and let Google reign supreme. But there is something people are forgetting: Android was a dud.

“But what do you mean, Ian? Android is selling millions of units per quarter, with some 400,000 activations per day. Surely Android is a glaring success.”

To which I would agree, but when Android first launched, it took a very long time for Android to hit the 1 million mark.

The HTC Dream, otherwise known as the G1, was the very first Android-based phone announced on September 23, 2008, which would become available on October 22, 2008. It would not be months (a few days over 6 months, to be more specific) until the next Android-based phone would be on the market, the HTC Magic.

For 3 months, the G1 was the only Android phone in the entire world, as the G1 would later be released in Australia on February 5, 2009, and then in Singapore on February 21, 2009. Now let me finally get to my point.

On April 23, 2009 (6 months after the released of the G1), T-Mobile announced that they had sold 1 million G1 devices. So yes, Android was a dud. I know people will say that it is not fair to compare one Android phone to numerous Windows Phone’s, to that I say: 1) It’s not Microsoft’s fault Google only had one phone at launch and 2) We are constantly comparing one phone (the iPhone) to hundreds of Android devices, so should we multiply iPhone sales by 100 or more to get a fair comparison between iPhone and Android sales?

Let’s compare that to initial Windows Phone’s sales: in one and a half months, Microsoft announced 1.5 million Windows Phone’s were sold to mobile operators. While Microsoft did not divulge real sales numbers, let us be real conservative and say that only 500,000 of those ended up in the hands of consumers. Any way you spin that, Windows Phone was selling at three times the pace of Android when it initially launched.

The Takeaway

Maybe I confused some people, but now that I have listed everything for proof, I will make a summary: Android was dead-on-arrival, just as everyone is claiming Windows Phone to be. It seems as though everyone has forgotten how slow Android was selling when it first launched, and forgot to compare Windows Phone sales to Android’s initial sales.

As I have shown, Windows Phone sold three times the phones in the same time period, yet somehow Windows Phone is dead-on-arrival? We now know that 1.6 million Windows Phones were sold in the last six months, so we can take a guess that Windows Phone’s total sales add up to anywhere in between 2 and 3 million, which is — as said numerous times — three times that of Android sales in the same time period during its initial launch.

Don’t get me started on how slow the Android Marketplace grew, either. The Android Marketplace hit 5,000 apps in 8 months, compared to the Windows Phone Marketplace which hit 5,000 apps in just a month.

So there you have it, the true success of Windows Phone 7.

Jeff Bradley, AT&T senior VP of mobile devices, recently told PCMag that Windows Phone is “doing fine” on their network.

“Mango will be the next event. With the timing of when [Windows Phone] came out and the timing of Mango, it didn’t leave a natural period in between when we could introduce an interim round of devices. We’re working very, very actively with the ecosystem and Microsoft,” said Bradley. Bradley also said that they will still be releasing the HTC HD7S sometime in the near future, while it doesn’t have much over the existing HTC HD7, it does have a much nicer screen which it apparently needs.

Windows Phone Slowing Losses

Yesterday comScore released their data on mobile phone market share, showing that while Microsoft’s market share still shrank, it did so much slower than it has before as pointed out by SeattlePI.

Nick Eaton says that the three month average ending in February 2011 saw Microsoft’s mobile market share drop by 1.3 points, a 1.7 point drop ending in January 2011, and a 1.5 point drop ending in December of 2010. Fast forward to yesterday, and comScore showed that Microsoft only saw a 0.9 point drop in their market share ending in March 2011, and while a drop is a drop any way you look at it, it appears that Windows Phone may be slowing down Microsoft’s mobile losses.

Recently I tried to get a comment from Microsoft on Windows Phone sales, but they had no comment.

Recently an analyst estimated that only 674,000 of the 1.5 million Windows Phone 7 devices that were shipped actually ended up in hands of the consumers, calling these figures ”catastrophic.”

You would think Microsoft would want to try and dispute these figures, but it appears that’s not the case.

I asked for a response to multiple questions, such as:

• Do you have any response to the estimated sales figures of only 674,000 out of 1.5 million shipped Windows Phone 7 devices?
• Do you have any comment on your commitment to the Windows Phone platform?
• Do you have any comment on the success of the Windows Phone platform?
• How about your commitment to the success of the Windows Phone platform?

Sadly, after waiting a few days for a response from Microsoft, a Microsoft spokesperson only had this to say: “… Microsoft does not have [a] comment on the below issues.”

Sorry folks, it looks as though Microsoft will be sticking to gauging the success of Windows Phone by the happiness of their customers, which don’t get me wrong is very important, but it seems as though sales of Windows Phone may just be as catastrophic as estimated. But hey, that’s just an assumption from their response, or lack thereof.

Google has posted a preview of the Android 3.0 SDK, which hints at numerous additions to the platform. Such additions include an extendable DRM framework (yes, Netflix apps all around!), more tablet-friendly interface, multi-core processor support and more. I have to say from the screenshots on Electronista, it’s nice, real nice, like so nice I would use it kind of nice. Do you hear that Microsoft? You better get your butt in gear!

In better news (well, for Microsoft): Microsoft has shipped 2 million Windows Phone 7′s (that still sounds weird) according to Microsoft’s Greg Sullivan. That is up from the 1.5 million over a month ago. While the number is still not massive, Sullivan says they will gauge their success of Windows Phone 7 through user satisfaction, and currently 93% are either “satisfied” or “very satisfied” which is great. The Windows Phone Marketplace now touts over 6,500 apps and over 24,000 registered developers, up from 5,000 and 20,000 (respectively) when announced at CES. Paul Thurrott also says Sullivan promised two updates “in the next few months.” Sure, whatever.

If you like to look for homes for sale (or rent, I believe) on Google Maps, you are out of luck. Due to “low usage” Google is taking the real-estate feature in Google Maps “off the market” according to CNET.

Some Congresswoman wants the video game industry to put warning labels on violent games. Uh, WHAT? What is the M rating for? M stands for Mature, T stands for Teen, and you know, those are kind of warnings. Why do you need to have such a label when ratings do that already? The crazy lady says that “the video game industry has a responsibility to parents, families, and to consumers—to inform them of the potentially damaging content that is often found in their products.” Quite frankly, I disagree. The video game industry does not have such a responsibility… Do you know who has that responsibility? The parents! The parents simply need to pull their dang head out and look at the ratings on the back of the dang game! Sheesh. Okay, I’ll stop now, as such things make my blood pressure go up (stupid stuff tends to do that to me).

Finally, Facebook now allows you to enable HTTPS for your account, to improve security of course. Took long enough to have a setting, and wasn’t Zuckerburg the one to say HTTPS should be used everywhere?

Microsoft has finally started to talk Windows Phone sales, with people saying they would be horrible, that it would be the next KIN, that it was no more than 120,000 (based on Facebook usage statistics). Well, they were all wrong.

Today Microsoft announced that over 1.5 million phones have been sold in the first six weeks of availability, at least to mobile operators, but with no word on activations.

Achim Berg, VP of Business and Marketing for Windows Phone had the following to say: “Additionally, early customer survey data on the overall software experience is very positive and the willingness to recommend our phone is very high. That’s really good for us.”

“Sales are ramping well as our reputation is growing for offering users a unique experience and are in line with our expectations – especially when compared to other new platform introductions. With a new platform you have to look at a couple of things, first of all customer satisfaction. As I mentioned before, we’ve seen great response on the complete mobile phone experience,” says Berg.

Currently Windows Phone 7 has over 18,000 registered developers, with a market place boasting over 4,000 apps.

Growing faster than Android

It took six months for 1 million G1 phones to be sold, meaning if Windows Phone 7 sales continue at this pace at least 6 million Windows Phones will be sold by that time.

If that isn’t enough, Windows Phone 7′s marketplace is growing faster than that of Android’s when it first launched by 2.5 times. After 2 months Windows Phone 7′s marketplace contains over 4,000 apps, which took Android over 5 months to achieve.

Sorry to say to those who wanted Windows Phone 7 to be a failure, your Christmas wish did not come true.