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A quiet app release in Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Store has stirred speculation that the company intends to become a mobile virtual network operator.
The recently launched app, named Cellular Data, allows users on Windows devices to pay for a contract-free mobile data plan from an MVNO, according to a description on Microsoft's website. Press commentary has interpreted the app as a hint that the company will be making a direct play for customers in the cell phone market, where Microsoft has struggled to gain a foothold.
According to a November 2015 study from Gartner, Windows 10 devices made up just 1.7% of the global smartphone market share by the end of the third calendar quarter of that year, down from an already paltry 3.0% share the company's mobile operating system saw at the same point in 2014. By comparison, Android captured 84.7% of the market and Apple Inc.'s iOS 13.1%. In a BuzzFeed interview published Dec. 30, 2015, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella acknowledged that Microsoft's small and shrinking foothold in the smartphone market was unsustainable.
If the Cellular Data app is indeed a sign that Microsoft is attempting to better its fate in the smartphone market with an MVNO of its own, the company itself has yet to confirm as much. Microsoft has not yet made clear what the app's bigger purpose would be, and the company did not respond to a request for comment. Nevertheless, analysts are cautiously speculating that the app sets...