Consider if they had focused on it instead of Android. Maybe we would still have Windows phones. Such are the tides of time. I think their present, malignant glory eclipses it financially but never will romantically.
They were around 10% in Europe when they ramped down everything.
It was the option for those unable to buy iPhones, and not willing to use Android as alternative.
However we had the whole mess with Windows 7 to 8.0 being a full reboot for devs, 8.0 to 8.1 being a reboot, 8.1 to 10 yet again, which naturally meant no one cared with quality apps as well.