Microsoft is marking the end of an era

After lots of speculation, and some significant information leakage, Microsoft finally and officially announced the Lumia 650 — a budget $199 smartphone running Windows 10 Mobile and offered to the business customer.

The conventional wisdom from mobile industry watchers is that the 650 will be the last smartphone to bear the Lumia brand, which Microsoft acquired in its disastrous 2013 acquisition of Nokia.

This new Lumia line unlikely to move the needle much for Microsoft's smartphone business, where its global marketshare hovers around 3 percent. Microsoft sold just 4.5 million Lumia devices in the three months leading up to January while Apple sold 75 million iPhones. In its five-year lifetime, the Lumia line has sold only 110 million handsets, according to analyst estimates.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is said to be preparing a new phone, with new branding, under the watchful eye of Surface boss Panos Panay. Microsoft top brass has hinted that this new phone is intended to shake up the market and maybe carve something away from Apple's continued dominance in the smartphone arena.

BusinessInsider

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