Ballmer: Windows Phone Sales Are Four Times Whatever Last Year’s Were

’Tis the season for bold pronouncements with few numbers attached.

Already this week, we’ve had Amazon make its usual statement of how its latest Kindle is nearly double another figure they won’t tell you. Now Microsoft is joining in.

At the company’s shareholder meeting on Wednesday, CEO Steve Ballmer said that Windows Phone sales are four times what they were a year ago. But, he didn’t attach a figure or a specific time period, so just how many phones Microsoft is selling remains something for analysts to merely guess at.

The number could well be good news for Microsoft. While last year’s sales were pretty dismal, they weren’t insignificant, and certainly growing fourfold is the kind of thing Microsoft needs to do if it hopes to become a serious player in the smartphone market.