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Blogosphere Corrected: WP7 Marketing To Exceed $200m in 2012 US Only; Nokia $2:$1

Thurott has done it again. Tired of inaccurate reporting that’s been going around he’s revealed details of Microsoft memorandums that he’s viewed and it’s a different picture than what’s been painted. Here’s the juicy stuff:

Microsoft and Nokia will not spend "in the neighborhood of $100 million" to market Windows Phone this year. The companies are spending much more than that.

And that’s just in the United States. In this most crucial of markets, Microsoft has one goal and one goal only: Convince consumers to purchase millions of Windows Phone handsets in the first half of 2012. Doing so will require a new set of phones–as I exclusively detailed previously in Microsoft’s LTE Plans for Windows Phone–as well as stepping up engagement with tech enthusiasts, increasing retail worker recommendation rates through training ands sale incentives, and other means.

But most of all, it’s going to require a lot of money.

Nokia is helping, but so are other Windows Phone hardware partners like Samsung. (As you may recall, Nokia previously stated that it would spent more marketing Windows Phone in the coming year than it had on any previous initiative.) According to the internal Microsoft documentation I’ve viewed, the total cost of this marketing tsunami is in the neighborhood of $200 million, not $100 million. And again, that’s just for the US. And on AT&T at least, Nokia is outspending Microsoft 2-to-1.

Included in the plan are sales incentives for retail workers aimed at getting them to finally start recommending Windows Phone as an alternative to Android and the iPhone. The amount of payments are $10 to $15 per handset sold, depending on the number sold, for some handset models.

Yes it’s a lot of money and that’s just in the US but more importantly is the sales incentives. Allt he ads won’t overcome the fact that the guy selling you the phone gets a few extra bucks to push iPhone and slam WP7 so this will level the playing field. I have a feeling there’s a lot more news coming at CES and more new devices that are waiting to be revealed.

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