The Lumia Cyan update is hitting more devices each day, and a big chunk of those are 'country variants' aka CV. Country variants are non-carrier phones, but even though they are SIM unlocked, they still have localization including default language, preloaded apps pertinent to that region and other network changes. As such, there is no such thing as a generic Lumia Windows Phone, because Hong Kong, Mexico, Thailand, Norway, and others all have their own 'country variant' for each Lumia model.

The Lumia country variants are widely eligible for the Lumia Cyan update, at least for the Lumia 625, Lumia 925, Lumia 1320 and Lumia 1520. However, not all of CVs are yet cleared, leading to confusion amongst readers who proceed to force-downgrade their phones to 8.0 in order to get the non-existing update.

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The mix-up stems from people simply not knowing which region their Lumia is as frequently these phones are bought from web retailers without that info being noted (e.g. the Lumia 1520.3 is not a US variant, but is often from Mexico). So here is a simple way to check your region of your device, which you can then compare against the Lumia update page or our tracker.

Check your region on your Lumia Phone

  • Settings
  • Extras + Info
  • More info button
  • Manufacturer Name
  • Mobile Operator

There you should see an RM-9xx number followed by the region information e.g. _apac_Hong_Kong_210, which confirms that my Lumia 1320 is a Hong Kong variant and as such, is eligible for Lumia Cyan. My Lumia 625 though is RM-941_eu_euro1_231 and the mobile operator is GB or Great Britain.

That is all there is to it, so hopefully you can now have a better understanding of why your phone is not yet getting an OS update, even though you see other Lumias that are the same model taking it!