After three difficult years, Microsoft is finally in a position where it can trumpet meaningful market share in major territories.

Developer support and enthusiasm, however, is another battle entirely, which is why the American giant's indie dev charm offensive has been notched up with the revelation that some games are generating more downloads and revenue on Windows Phone than iOS.

The firm has published a blog featuring statistics from the developer behind location-based game QONQR (pronounced conquer), with the studio claiming it sees ten times the number of weekly downloads and twice the amount of weekly revenue on Microsoft's platform compared to Apple's.

Development issues

Microsoft claims QONQR CEO Scott Davis attributes the game's overall profitability to the Windows Phone version, with "more than a hundred thousand users" generating revenue on the OS.

"Scott mentioned that one of the key advantages of developing for Windows Phone has been the simplicity of supporting all the different phone models," details the blog entry.

"In iPhone his team has had challenges ensuring full backward compatibility with previous versions of iOS, and in their efforts of porting to Android they have faced significant hurdles managing device fragmentation."



More interesting, however, is Davis' assessment that the higher number of downloads on Windows Phone is due to better visibility than on the App Store.

Visibility

Discovery is a key issue for all mobile developers, but it's rare for even the most loyal of Windows Phone studios to say anything positive about the set up and layout of the platform's default marketplace.

QONQR, however, asserts that the store's New & Rising rundown, in-store promotions, the marketplace's web version (which consumers can purchase and download from) and having a Windows 8 app available too have all contributed to high downloads on Windows Phone.

Of course, these figures can be spun in another way, too. If the Windows Phone version is generating ten times the weekly downloads of iOS, then you might expect its revenue rate to be far higher than double that of the iPhone version's.

That effectively means that, QONQR monetises at a far higher rate per user on iOS than it does on Windows Phone, and if the developer behind it could master its visibility on Apple's platform and up its download rate, its revenues could jump majorly.

Either way, we can expect more chest beating from Microsoft in this manner in the months ahead, as the company looks to pitch Windows Phone's growing userbase as a profitable one for developers currently allied solely to the iOS and Android duopoly.

[source: Microsoft]