Windows Phone Slowly Gaining More Developer Support

Microsoft’s Windows Phone hasn’t exactly taken off just yet, despite the company’s deal with Nokia. The platform is growing and Microsoft is slowly bringing aboard new developers.

According to analytics firm Flurry, more developers are moving to Windows Phone, making it the fastest growing mobile platform at the moment. The numbers come from Flurry Analytics installs, so they might be a bit off, but with 190,000 developers using the service the company has a pretty good sample size.

According to Flurry’s numbers as of June 2012 Window Phone accounts for 6 percent of all new apps. In January the platform saw 3 percent of all new apps started, and much of last year it remained steady at 1 percent. During the same period of time the other hopeful third platform, BlackBerry, remained flat at about 1 percent of all new apps started.

With its growing percentage of new apps, Windows Phone is slowly going creeping up on Android. In the second quarter of 2011 Windows Phone apps accounted for 1 percent of Flurry’s new installs while Android accounted for 27 percent. In the second quarter of 2012 new Windows Phone apps grew to 4 percent of installs. Android also grew Q2 2012, but only to 28 percent.

Apple’s iOS decreased from 71 percent in Q2 2011 to 67 percent in Q2 2012. Flurry says both Android and iOS tend to fluctuate a lot.

Without users buying or at least installing the apps the numbers don’t mean much, though Microsoft is trying on that front. We’ve heard reports of the Lumia 900 performing well in the market, or at least exceeding expectations. The platform still needs a breakout device to drive a ton of sales. Perhaps a Nokia Lumia device with Windows Phone 8 and PureView will drive sales, but such a theoretical phone is still months and months away.