• Diyan
• On July 7, 2014

A story went viral on the Internet claiming Microsoft might be working on a Lumia smartphone with Android OS instead of Windows. Evleaks, a pretty reliable source of mobile leaks on new devices, says: “Big news: Android-powered Lumia incoming” and he believes the phone will come with the new “Nokia by Microsoft” branding.

While the existence of a high-end Android device with the Lumia logo would be warmly welcomed by some customers, this won’t be a good move for Microsoft due to a number of reasons.

Microsoft / Nokia would be crazy to burn its own OS again (after Symbian) and launch a Lumia powered device on the rivaling platform. This would also confuse most of the current Windows Phone consumers, those who switched from other operating systems including Android and those who helped Windows Phone grow from a 0% market share to the state it is now (4% in the US, 10% in Europe)

We see the number of WP apps is growing rapidly and the Store adds 500 new applications daily. At the same time, more and more developers are joining the Windows platform so the app growth will accelerate in the near future. If Microsoft really launches an Android–based Lumia, Redmond will send unclear signals to both consumers and developers.

So, Nokia Lumia with Android is quite unlikely, but Nokia X is another story – there are three phones with Android already, each of them fitting within the low-end segment. It won’t be surprising if the next Android device by Microsoft comes with high-end specs, but it won’t be a Lumia device… we are pretty sure.