Windows Phone 7 sales–first real numbers show evidence of tepid performance

Microsoft has been pretty reticent about releasing sales data for Windows Phone 7, leading many to suggest poor market performance for devices running the new OS, despite handsets selling out in many places.

The only real numbers we have heard so far was an un-sourced 40,000 first day sales on in US on the 8th November North American launch, published by The Street.

Now, via the Facebook App installed on all Windows Phone 7 handsets, which we can assume most Windows Phone 7 users use, we can see sales have been increasing steadily, but are still hovering around the low point of 120 000 after more than a month of sales in Europe and USA.

More after the break.

The dedicated Facebook for Windows Phone 7 app (2nd most popular free app in Marketplace) shows a similar curve, but shows that about a third of users are quite happy to use the build-in Facebook integration in Windows phone 7 without the need for a dedicated app.

While the real numbers for sales are likely slightly higher, the range is still pretty disappointing, and suggests that even older  Windows Mobile handsets sold at a 10 times higher rate in Q3 2010 than Windows Phone 7 handsets in Q4 2010.

Of course some of the reasons for the poor sales may simply be lack of availability – reports of shortages continue to arrive, but it is clear if Microsoft was to hit their 30 million target for 2011 they still have a long uphill struggle to re-attain relevance again.

Stats via Allfacebook.com