Report: Windows Phone is the world’s fastest growing smartphone operating system

wow! see... WP is actually run by two companies :p

Is that any different than the Samsung Galaxy line?

Yes it is! Nokis and MS are focusing entirely on the Lumia line now and it will only speed up after the Nokia purchase. The 1020 is the living example of their collaboration. Samsung and Google on the other hand are different story. Google focuses on Android, while Samsung has to focus on Galaxy line as well as their TouchWiz UI. Their lack of collaboration may be the biggest reason behing lags which are excessivly reported on Galaxy phones.

Well its all Microsoft soon...

Which is scary. Nokia has been the one doing all the work. Microsoft is siting on its ass.

Thats what we think! and while that might be true, I'd like to think that as they say the GDRs are hardware updates which we needed as now WP has the most power left over for running apps now with the SD800... There wasn't a really big difference between WP7 and 8 mainly because most of the work was re-writing the core... If WP8.1 is as big an update as W8 to W8.1 I think we'll be very happy indeed... it proved they listen to feed back, the start was never truely coming back but nearly every feature in the update was one that was asked for...

You think so, and this does not hold true. Microsoft had working really hard on Windows Phone since 2010. Perhaps you weren't around when Windows Phone 7.5 was out. People complain and whine that Windows Phone 7 was not supported enough through updates, while in reality, Windows Phone 7 was updated like hell. If you have used WP7.0 Build 7004, you would know how MUCH Windows Phone improved in reality. It was almost an unusable OS in the beginning and the updates brought so much to it. WP7.5 was unbelievable. 500+ new features.   And as for WP8, now after using WP8, if you go back to WP7 for some time, you'll see it has A LOT of little things different and these little things ARE what make the OS much more usable and better. As for the GDRs,  they were primarily for hardware support, and also, Microsoft wanted to deliver an awesome and huge update Windows Phone 8.1. (They should call it 8.5) When that update comes out, you'll see how much Microsoft has been working.   And WP8.1 wouldn't have got delayed to next year, had these bugs not shown up on WP8. I know, I know. WP8 is VERY buggy. Windows Phone 7 was the most stable and fast and secure OS in the world even the lower end devices. WP8 has squandered all that reputation. It is nowhere near as smooth as WP7. This was bound to happen, they were really rushing up for WP8. The port to NT was difficult, it seems. And I guess they started working on WP8 only after 7.1 was released, so less time. If you actually see what they're doing, they're working like dogs right now.

yeah, with MS rushing pushing out XB1, WIN 8.1, Surface(s), etc. its amazing how much they could still update. ios devices usually get one gigantic update, but we get a gigantic update + small useful ones too. WP is improving so fast, id like a report sarting the 1st iphone vs first wp and see how much they advance thorught the years.

It ain't Blackberry lol! muahahahahahaaha

Hahahahahaha

The way I see it is, if it doubled in one quarter I say by this time next year we'll be neck to neck with IOS or just over them by .3%.

Don't forget that Apple sold nearly 9 millions phones in one day when the 5S launched. It might take a little longer than a year. But on the otherhand, most of the iphones they sold that day were replacements for older iphones which were then thrown away, and most windows phones bought are to replace feature phones.

Wasn't that proven to only be shipped numbers not sales numbers?

Apple sales figures on release are ALWAYS skewed as they count all pre orders and backorders in there as well.. Usually they need at least 6-8 weeks to deliver and generally numbers drop after that. So over the quarter the will still sell more than 10M but not in the 25-30M numbers anymore. Overal iPhone sales have been in decline over the past year with WP picking up speed faster..  

Your math is terrible

People need to remember that it's easier to grow when your small, though (that's just a fact of math).

Yes!

Two more years and WP will surpass IPhone in global market share.

1 year...

Unlikely to happen in one year. Two could actually happen if this continues, but explosive growth usually slows down eventually. I'd say 2015 or 2016 assuming it continues to be popular. It would be extremely unlikely to not pass the iphone though, given the sheer number of people that windows phone can hit with various budgets.

yes likely in 2016 surely, unless MS screws it up.

It will happen in 2014, if blue is any good. Reason: Apple's share is sliding, too. I think they will meet in the middle at approximately 8%.

lol maybe within a decade

Here in South America, Windows Phone is the second OS in MarketShare. Meanwhile Android is the first.

Agreed... but with caveats.
WP desperately needs to fix some basic features before it will be ready to beat Apple. We need something like Airplay. We need to be able attach something other than pictures directly from within the email client. It would be nice to see more integration between WP and win8 to be able to send webpages, links, files, map directions, and other content between devices wirelessly. Having a single browser history and favorites between devices would be handy too (and would win me over from Chrome). I understand that 2013 was the year of hardware support, and 2014 will be the year of adding features, but if they fall short then they will never beat Apple.
Another thing is that MS needs to convince other manufacturers that their platform will provide patent protection from Apple lawsuits. Maybe bundle patents for use on Android phones if they promise real WP support and advertising for their devices? I don't know. But HTC and Sammy have not exactly seen great sales for their WP devices, which is why they are so hesitant to put it on more expensive devices. If they manage those 2 things then they will grow like crazy and could easily catch up to Apple in 2-3 years. In the future I think it will very much be a 3-way tie between Apple, MS and Android. WP is still a young platform, and I think that people understand that and are waiting for it to mature before they give it a chance. But if they spend too long playing catchup then they will never be taken seriously even if they do ever fix the problems. If that happens then they will always be a small minority OS.

Umm PlayTo

WooW  Thanks, havnt seen that app... gotta try it when i get home :)

is WM a ancestor of WP8?

give it 1 year to surpass iphone and 3 yrs for android :)

I think 3 years for IOS. Too many iSheep right now.

Yes isheep for dinner

I went back. Got a 5S on Tuesday, and my 920 is headed for eBay soon. Baaaaa.

What was your reason? (honest question)

Good luck in the slaughterhouse.

I saw the iPhone 6 renders. If it really does have a 5" screen or better and all that industry standardization behind it... well... I'm going to miss my Lumia 925 and my HTC One but just not that much.

id wait for 8.1 if i were you.

I went back to to my iPhone 5. Most of my friends use iPhones and I missed the convenience of iMessage, being able to have the same messages on my phone, iPad and MacBook. The main thing that made me go back, though, was battery life. I bought the Lumia 920 because my iPhone 5 had terrible battery life. I found the Lumia to be even worse. Which is something I never understood, the 920 has a much bigger battery and an equally lightweight OS but it's web browsing battery life is really terible. I won't be selling my 920, I like to keep it as a spare and to just be able to play around with WP when new things come out. I enjoyed the experience and I can definitely see it has potential, It just didn't have the battery life. I'm pretty keen on getting the 1520 if it has the awesome battery life that you'd expect from a 3400mah unit but for the time being there just isn't a high end Lumia device with solid enough battery life for me to make the jump from my much more customizable jailbroken iPhone.  I'm hoping that as market share increases we will start to see more of a homebrew community for WP. That would definitely make the platform a whole heap more appealing to me. 

If battery life was your issue then you could have looked at the 1020, I'm getting more than double the battery life than my 920. It also doesn't generate anywhere close to the same amount of heat.

Yeah I've heard good things about the 1020's battery life. After buying the 920 outright back in May I wasn't super keen to pony up another $700 4 months later when the 1020 was launched in Australia in September knowing that everything bar the camera would be obseleted a few months later by Nokia's end of year announcements. Just seemed smarter to go back to the iPhone and wait to scope out Nokia's coming releases.

event with gdr 2? my battery lasts hours longer than it used to...

I can appreciate that. For myself, I can say that I'm getting 14-17hr average on L920, but that often requires shutting the phone off when heat/battery issue starts up. Hope you come back.

You know, Google Voice gives you the ability to have the same messages on your phone, tablet, and laptop, too!  I use my Google Voice number as my business line and any text messages sent to that number reach all of my devices, including two different phones and I can easily reply from my laptop.  It also allows me to answer/make phone calls using my laptop, smart phone, or my burn phone.   Just a thought, if you ever end up leaving iOS again.

cool story bro

You're probably right. Too many of them.
But let's remember: WP might benefit from a accelerated growth once people see the numbers increasing and more people talk about it.

I doubt that WP will ever win over the iUsers. The Android market full of people who only have it because it was what was available, or what was affordable, but have no particular allegiance.

Not true, it won me over. I've had iPhone 4, 4S and 5. Was completely integrated in with iCloud/iWork. Have an iPad, Macbook Pro Retina, Apple TVs, etc. Buy all my content and movies through iTunes and I've been won over.

There are enough Android users for there to be lots of you and lots of them.

I rather have it surpass android cause low end android phones are garbage and isheep are isheep cause they have nice product so for now I love the w vs a don't hate apple but I hate android!

I still don't entirely understand exactly why people don't like the iPhone. I don't like Apple as a company but they have some amazing engineers. Each iPhone consistently puts out class leading performance, a high quality camera (1020 > 1520 >? iPhone 5S > 925 for example), a usable (and still sadly more feature rich than us) OS, and a good app store. I realize the iPhone is expensive elsewhere in the world outside of the US where subsidies bring the price to the same as everyone else (which may be the only reason for all the hate?) but other than that, what do people hate about the iPhone particularly? Just remember, if it weren't for Apple, we'd be using cheap netbooks with slow as hell atom CPUs, and cheap windows laptops that would probably still be shipping with low contrast 1366x768 panels even at $800+. We have Apple to thank for a LOT of hardware innovation and pressure over the years.

I'm not sure the tech world owes them as much as they and their fans would like us to believe.  Perhaps their pressure has encouraged other manufacturers to pay more attention to the image of their own products, which has probably led to thinner, lighter devices, but that's all.  Screen resolutions, CPU speeds and the like were advancing at a frenetic pace while Apple were still stuck in  a rut, churning out frankly overpriced and underspecced Macs in the late 90s and early 2000s.  Ultimately, there are two things that Apple are great at: design and marketing, particularly the latter.  They're fantastic at selling people the idea that by buying their products and being seen with them that they're actually elevating their status as human beings.  They've managed, successfully, to tap into a very primitive insecurity and I think it's the disdain for people who are sucked in by this utterly materialistic ethos that polarizes opinion towards Apple.  

+1

+1

+1

Well put. People don't realize that first "revolutionary" iPhone had sub-par camera, etc. but was simply a well-packaged example of current (and stolen) technology that was marketed incredibly well by a company whose brand-perception was exceptionally high at the time (and still is as a result). Don't get me wrong, they deserve credit for packaging it as they did, and they do make a good phone, but to call it or Steve Jobs a revolutionary is a bit farcical.

I'm a proud Lumia 928 owner and have no interest in an iPhone, but to say the original iPhone was just repackaging existing tech is not true. Apple achieved an absolute breakthrough with the multitouch capacitive touchscreen. I say this as a person in product development who was pushing the need for going beyond single-touch to multi-touch in the gaming world for a few years before the iPhone. We couldn't get there though because none of our suppliers could even make a cost-effective multi-touch screen (at a reasonable price point and thickness). Apple paved the way, and enabled an entirely new kind of hardware. I don't think they invented the technology in-house, but they were certainly the first to put it to use and demonstrate the manufacturing techniques for successful mass production at a reasonable cost. Apple also innovated with the App Store business model. Before that, if you wanted to buy an app, you would download it from the vendor or some carrier store and install it. This was too much of a hassle for most users, and so app sales and usage (even of free apps), was tiny compared to what we now have. We take these for granted now on all modern smartphones, but Apple absolutely broke new ground in these areas. No, when I think about the company that mainly feeds off the work of others, at least in the smartphone world, it's Google. I don't take away anything from their search development, their innovations with mapping (everyone copied Google Maps' approach after it came out as the first to use Ajax so you could actually pan the map without clicking an awful "Move Left" button), and some of their other true breakthroughs, but on the phone experience, unlike Windows Phone, they just copied Apple and did a much worse job. They compound that with all of the information gathering they do because their real customers are the advertisers (not us users), plus their refusal to release YouTube and other apps for Windows Phone and even block MS from creating their own.  I don't understand how anyone on the Windows Phone side can not hate Google far more than Apple. Apple's just a different philosophy, but they do what they do for their users well. Google, on the other hand, is a thieving (personal data and Apple and MS software development) vile company who is out to undermine Windows Phone by refusing to allow Windows Phone apps for the few Google Essential services, like YouTube.

Let's face it - technology is not created in a vacuum (pun intended).  For the average user, it matters little who created something in a lab.  The question is how it is implemented in an otherwise good product and how it is combined with opther features.  Some times the biggest innovations are the duh ones (duh - anyone could have done that).  My favorite example is putting a sliding rear door on the driver's side of a minivan.  That really didn't take a rocket scientist - just a little out of the box thinking and making sure a child lock would keep eager kids from jumping into traffic.  How many years did minivans and sliding doors exist before someone (Chrysler) connected the dots? And referring to Apple under Pepsi type rule (late 90's to early 2000s) is not really a valid objection.  It will be interesting to see how Apple does without Steve Jobs this time around. I used to be a Apple-basher with the best of them.  Nothing but MS.  But a little over four years ago, I broke down and bought an iPhone 3 Gs.  It is due for replacement - I have used up my available space, and many things are way too slow at this point.  Its pretty low-res camera still produces quite usable pictures, but it counts more for utility than as a choice for cherished moments. To me, the iPhone JUST WORKS.  No surprises.  No magic needed.  No instructions needed.  Most apps also just works.  I have over 200 apps installed.  I'd hate to think how the WP start page would look with that.  Original battery - original everything (except the cover, and I left my original charger in a hotel room the first year).  I have come to love the big ugly plug - I have NEVER had a problem connecting it.  Ever.  No worn pins, no marginal connections.  And I hardly ever run out of battery (I charge it almost every night - I may occasionally get two days of light use out of a single charge).  The iPhone changed not only how I used a phone, but the way I looked at a phone. I also have a Droid with the high powered battery - but it runs out of juice quite frequently.  There are some things I like about it, but my main objection to that phone is that too many things don't work or don't work the way I'd expect.  After less than a year, I had to throw away the original cable - the plug wouldn't connect.  On my second cable, if I wiggle it just right, it will be OK.  The phone is overly sensitive, and I can't pick it up without launching something.  It will notify me of some event, but I never know which one out of a screen full of noise.  It took me over a year to learn how to answer a phone call without getting either me or the phone confused about what I was doing.  In large part because I couldn't pick up the phone without setting off something on the overly sensitive screen.  Some of this is not Android's fault, but some of it is.  Either way, it shows the detailed attention that Apple gives to their designs.  Apple's design prowess goes well beyond the visual, and covers the total user experience.  MS likes to talk about user experience, but Apple does it and does it well. I gave up on MS phones way back.  And it will be a while before I reconsider.  I personally do not like W8 on a computer or on a phone.  I don't like thing that move and flash an hoot at me from the screen.  I don't want everything I do to be posted to facebook or twitter or google+ or linkedin or any other social network.  I don't want to log in to Microsoft just to get on my computer.  I have always filled up my start menu, and every attempt from MS to make it a single column or now a single screen only creates a crappy experience for me.  Others may feel differently.  MS pushes the ability to have TWO apps side by side as a good thing (talking W8 is general for a moment).  I have two MONITORS and routinely more than 30 windows open, frequently sharing screen real estate. To me, Microsoft's advertising is a big turnoff, whether it is for WP, Surface, Bing, IE or whatnot.  Surface is good for playing rythmic stuff if you have 11 of them and 10 or more musical friend to do it with.  Bing will lead you where MS wants you to go, and WP will flash and let the social network world know what you are up to at all times.  IE will make ugly websites beautiful.  Quite frankly, I don't really care that much what it looks like.  I use the web for information, not inspiration.  I don't usually want to do what MS thinks I should, or go where they lead.  I'm less concerned with the color of a tablet or how I can snap on a keyboard, than how well it works for me and the way I like to work.  Google search won me over because of the minimalistic interface and the straight and unbiased results.  No fluff.  No images to slow me down or distract me from what I was doing.  Apple's commercial "there's an app for that" was so on the money it was funny for that reason alone.  That's how I felt about it. Given enough time and money, maybe MS will succeed with WP.  Maybe Apple will wind up in oblivion.  Time will tell.  But for now, Apple pretty much created the smartphone marked for consumers (RIM/Blackberry and some other company I have already forgotten the name of created it for businesses).  Android turned it into a commodities market.  I predict that something we don't know about yet will change the market for computers, phones, and tablets.  And it is not the cloud.  At that time, the industry may become one of incremental improvements.

Yes...because Apple is responsible for every innovation in the last decade. All hail Apple. /s

iOS is no longer cool, new, or innovative. It's become the Windows 95 of mobile OSes, and Windows Phone is out-designing and out-innovating iOS, and Android for that matter. Also, I think most people haven't totally bought in to Apple's bullsh*t, and actually are willing to switch ecosystems.

::cough:: the XP of Mobile OS'

Yo txDrum:
Just remember,if it weren't for Microsoft giving apple a major loan at a time of dire need,apple wouldn't be here

I personally don't really dislike the iPhone, even though I'm a heavy Android user. As a consumer, however, I do not like Apple's strategy of overpricing its products, even in developed markets. Let me give you an example. The iPhone 5s costs $199 to manufacture (read this on WSJ), while the GS4 costs $240 (same article). Meanwhile, the HTC One costs $270 to make, and I bet Lumia flagships costs more to make than Samsung and Apple flagships as well. Yet these phones all retail for $199 on contract. Morover, the first two cost $649 for 16GB while the HTC One is $599 for 32GB off-contract. You can probably see where I'm going with this. Apple, and to a lesser extent Samsung, are both high-profit companies, which is great for shareholders and employees of the company but awful for the consumer.

Most prices are set to what the market is willing to pay.  I'd like to pay less, too, but unfortunately it isn't up to me to decide - except I can vote with my money.  I'm sure that HTC could charge more, they would (but the compete to an extent on price).  And be assured that both HTC and Samsung (and Nokia/MS) would look for ways to reduce cost to build without lowering the price - unless a lower price would give them a competitive edge (and they would need it).  So the question becomes - is there something the iPhone 5s lacks (that would significantly increase the cost to build) and the others include, is the iPhone production taking shortcuts and producing inferior hardware, is it Apple's focus on a limited set of products with timeless designs and limited and targeted changes (think Mercedes Benz) allowing honing of feature versus cost, or is it simply smart design for production?  I don't know, but it would seem to me that constantly producing vastly different products tend to reduce quality and/or add cost to produce similar quality.

This guy (txtDrum) is correct regarding Apple whether people here like it or believe it. I typed that on my 920 and my Nexus 5 is shipping.

Don't get me wrong guys. I love Microsoft and even Android products. I work on a Lenovo W510, play on a custom built 4670k rig and a Samsung series 7 chronos, and have a 2013 Nexus 7 and a Lumia 928. I'm about to get a Surface 2 for both my aunt (she wants to buy a tablet) and sister about to go into high school (christmas present).   But in 2010, while Inspirons and dv6's were crappy plastic nonsense, Apple was shipping an all aluminum Macbook Pro and Macbook Air with high quality displays. Even in 2012, high quality windows PCs still shipped with plastic bodies and low quality displays. My Series 7, which I'm plenty happy with, has a ton of flex in the keyboard and a crap low quality display (at least it's 900p). Nobody has yet equaled Apple's trackpads. Finally, in 2013, the Macbook Air is no longer the best ultraportable on the market. But Apple is what got us there. If not apple, who? Dell? HP? Even great companies like Asus and Lenovo have followed Apple's lead for a while. Apple also brought us into the world of high DPI. Marketing or not, "Retina" meant something in 2012 with the retina ipads and the rMBP. You don't have to agree with the fact, but when it comes to hardware engineering, Apple is tops and has been since 2006. Also yes, if MSFT hadn't saved Apple's ass, they'd be out of business right now. That doesn't really mean anything though, other than being an amusing anecdote. But while Microsoft has always had wonderful, excellent software, Apple's hardware has been top notch. I would also throw in the Surface line as examples of hardware done right, but let's remember why Microsoft even started that. OEMs not putting out quality products that could compete with Apple!

Something's wrong with that. In 2010, Apple products, weren't retina, meaning, they were 1200x800 right?

Thanks for the reasoning behind buying your family members a tablet. The high school reasoning made me laugh. Someone give this guy a suitcase to store his throwaway cash.

Long before Apple was making compelling designs for PCs and laptops SONY was, the problem with them is they overpriced their hardware beyond even Apple.

I'd buy a Sony over a crApple any day

but are'nt nebooks the ancestors of ultrabooks??

I think people respect the hardware design, but the constant hype about the OS from the media makes it annoying when compared to the offerings from WP and even Android. I am frankly shocked every time I use someone's iPhone how incredibly... dull they are. It's like using windows 3.1 vs Windows 8. Thanks to their reach for the high-income market they get great apps. But the tech is pedestrian at best and they are coasting on their past successes, as evidenced by their shrinking market share. And STILL they are treated by the press as if they are the biggest thing in smartphones. Do you think the "average person" knows that the Q3 market share was 13%? The perception maintained by the press is that iOS is the leader. I think this annoys many more than the benefits or lack thereof of the actual product.

I dislike the iPhone because it is too compartmentalized.  Android and WP both offer more seamless integration between different apps, and the OS itself.  Take Nokia Here Maps for instance.  Any app can use the Nokia offline maps for use in their own application.  That's not possible in iOS.  If I want to share a photo, I can share it with any app that makes itself available.  So I can click share and choose WhatsApp as an example, and not be limited by the choices that Apple has made available for you.  These are all the things that continued to frustrate me during my 4 years of iPhone use.  And you are right, WP doesn't have all of the features that iOS has yet, but not everyone uses every feature.  In spite of missing a few features, I have found myself happier with WP than I was with iOS.   It wasn't the OS that first attracted me to WP though.  It was the camera in the 920 and the fact that it had optical image stabilization.  Having this feature in my pocket and DSLR cameras, I knew how significant that was for my smart phone photography needs.  I waited for my contract to expire and ended up with a 1020 which I love.  I feel the same way about my 1020 that I did about my iPhone 3gs.  At the time the 3GS was the best that was available and was a huge improvement over my Samsung Windows Mobile phone.  Now I feel that my 1020 is a huge improvement over my 4s.   So that's why I don't like the iPhone, but I still respect its place in the industry and the fact that it suits other people's needs better than mine.

I don't like the layout or usability of the OS, same reason I don't like OSX. Also, to me the iPhone looks like a pretty girlie phone.

I don't like the iphone hardware at all... pre-5 the phones were unusably small. I've used a 4S at work and I hated using it, especially when typing. It really does seem geared towards women with small hands, which also explains why it's pushed as a fashion accessory. The iphone5 is a joke - my friend bought one and within a week he had scratches all over the case with the aluminium showing through. A basic internet search will show it's a worldwide problem. That just screams "poorly made" to me. I've had my HD7 for 2.5 years, and the paint is still perfect on all the metal parts. The "retina display" might've been interesting in 2010, but most phones have already superceded that DPI. I don't like being forced to use iTunes - it's just awful. I also don't like IOS - it's just a glorified app launcher, totally boring, and I completely loathe the in-app back buttons at the top of the screen. Yes the app store has far more apps, but they've had a huge headstart. I despise Apple as a company - their keynotes are full of lies ("reality distortion") and they overprice their products to make it seem 'premium' when it's on-par with everything else. I simply don't buy into the pretentiousness surrounding Apple products i.e. saying "it's the best" without any justification or comparison to anything else.  I actually have people at work who say "I love Apple products, they never crash or have any problems" and then a week later they have to return their brand-new (at the time) iPhone 5 because it was DOA, and then a few weeks later return their MacBook because the screen died after a month. I'm not saying that's common, what I am saying is that ALL tech has issues and to say that one manufacturer is somehow immune to it is complete bollocks. At my work we have a cupboard full of near-new Mac keyboards, and drawers full of near-new "magic mice". When the batteries run out on the mice they disconnect from the Mac, and nobody (even Mac gurus) can figure out how to reconnect them to the Mac after replacing the batteries. So they throw them in a drawer and buy a new one. I'm not sure what's wrong with the keyboards, but it's probably a similar story. We have iMacs that have moisture inside the display panels, others that have network problems almost daily. Typically Mac converts compare their expensive Macs to some $400 netbook they used to own, which (predictably) was a heap of crap. When people say that Macs, and Apply products as a whole, are "just better" I just think they're deluded. Anyway, I've glossed a lot of the details... but I don't want to write an essay here! haha

Android will be tough to beat, unless Samsung does something to screw it up.  But iOS is definitely in striking distance!  But more likely in two years.

Dangit this means that its almost impossible for Nokia to complete the promise they had earlier of having 10% market share by the end of they year, still...im very proud of what they have done

Depends, if you take the Windows Phone market they have a 90% share ;) never underestimate the ability of a marketer to be positive!

That is great news. 2 more years and I think we can take Apple and its iOS down.

way to go msft!

...and do not mess with Brand awareness and please Pump good marketing campaigns. Oh, one more thing! Make US exclusives open Worldwide, or at least open to Europe residents!!!

It's not a matter of if we surpass iOS, but when. iOS has lost it's "shine" a long time ago. iOS 7 brings nothing new to the iPhone other then some minor feature changes and a revamped UI, which I personally, think is hiddious.
Windows Phone not only grows in market share but also grows as a ecosystem. Predictions are that in 2014 Microsoft will combine the WP and Windows RT OS's into one and combine the Windows Store into one Store for all Microsoft platforms. This is a HUGE deal and probably will mean a huge turnaround in terms of OS awareness to the big public. Windows Phone has a lot more to offer then the current Mobile platforms like Android and iOS and will continue to grow. This will be made sure by the purchase of the Nokia Mobile department, which will result in even more innovative hardware. The future is bright for us WP fanboys :-)

Well, for me Windows Phone still needs alot of work, The OS is not yet stable lots of times the caps crashes and the phone gets over heated. Besides there is alots of issues with Sync with google and facebook. In the end, the slow in notification centers and the issue with the Store that not all apps are coming will make the OS hard to love and buy.   I do love the UI, its amazing and i think its the best. I love how the system is fast and unique. Also i like the ease of using the phone. The camera is amazing.  Lets hope MS figures away to improve the OS and makes it more stable with apps and over heating.

"The OS is not yet stable" you are evidently confusing unstable apps with an unstable OS. The wp8 OS is incredibly stable judging by how it virtually never crashes (badly designed apps crash, not the OS). The Overheating issue has probably to do with the outdated cpu/gpu pushed to its limits, and won't happen with new hardware (1520 and anything that follows it)

So if the apps are not stable that means we hardly have any good apps. Let me explain from what i suffer. recently and i have it posted that my wifi keeps on disconnected and they only way to fix it is by disabling and then enabling the wifi. 2nd, if u use skype (sometimes) the apps get stuck and it keeps saying Resuming. 3rd, whatsapp sometimes also goes through a loop in a black screen till it crash.  Games: over heating and crashing.  Here drive: when ur using it and by mistake u click on search button.. You keep hear the nevigation but the apps is no where u need to restant the app for it work.  Browser: we dont have the option to go forward just backward. Some Flash and HTML issues with sites. Google and FB Sycn issues and also no Notification Center....So is it the apps or the OS..IF u mean the apps then thats a big issue.

What phone do you have? I have not experienced any of these problems with my Lumia 920. I think you need to return your phone.

I have a Lumia 521 and the only app I ever have crash is Engadget

Lol! Serves them right! :D

What kind of android phone do you have?

I disagree. I switched from iOS 6 to WP7 and WP8 because Apple (at that time) refused to allow access through the lockscreen to anything other than the camera without having to unlock the phone. For me, iOS 7 is a great upgrade over WP8 and I happily switched back. YMMV, of course. 

iOS 7 is ugly and runs horribly on my iPad 3. I would gladly take 6 back over 7.

I like the look of iOS 7 better, and it runs just fine on my iPad 3. I prefer iOS 7 over iOS 6 by a huge margin and would switch back to WP8 before iOS 6. But that's my opinion.

Seriously u went back to ios 7? do u know that IOS7 has lots of bugs and the iphone is always warm to due to the IOS. Besides man what changes in IOS7 are u talking about?   Anyways look, i have an iphone and its ios6 i wont upgrade. I seriously hate the small screen and the camera and also dont like how fragile the phone is. IOS7 isnt for me at least for now and if ur back to apple for the ios7 then..have a nice jump and enjoy

So you switched to ios7 because of the lack of a feature that we know for a fact will come to wp8 with windows blue...

I would not suggest WP8 to any of my friends simply because of the horrible Facebook and Twitter sync. Messages enter my iPad within 10 seconds, Android 15 seconds and WP8 1 hour to infinity(too many lost notifications to count)

Now, we're talking.

Nice, its funny to see Android and iOS falling in Europe.

How long to pass iOS? Well...seeing that Apple sold in one weekend almost the same amount as WP in a quarter...I think there's still a long way to go.

Even Tim Cook by targeting Microsoft in the Keynote recognized the simple fact that their fight with Android is over and if you go from Top dog to having a 13% share... I'd be worried and assuming the trend will go the same way... losing market share... at the same rate... iOS is destined to a niche market share as Mac OS that holds 3.6% of PC ...

Yeah, that presentation looked more like a Microsoft-Roast than an Apple keynote.
However, seeing how people still buy year after year into the iPhone crazyness...it will take a while for that to pass. But they should start to think of solutions to keep it going. Their massive attack on MS's PCs with the free updates and software may still prove a nightmare to MS. Let us see.
At the present moment, WP still can't realistically expect to surpass iOS.

Selling 9 million iPhones in a day, doesn't mean increase in market share. They probably sold 98% of those to existing iPhone owners, meanwhile, WP is actually more than doubling their markets are with NEW customers, as well as keeping most of their existing ones. They can sell 30 million phones in a quarter but still lose market share. The market is expanding at 45% annually, iOS is losing share slowly, while WP is exploding. So it won't take long to pass iPhone, I say less than 2 years.

What counts is how many they in a year or a quarter, not that one day. How many this kind of day they have?

Guys we hav to develop more and more apps so that we can get that isheep for dinner

If Apple continues to release less than inspiring hardware/software, then 3 years. If the iPhone 6 (which I think will be a make-or-break release for them) has something impressive to wow their sheepish clientele, then I think it will take WP longer to surpass them, if we ever do.

Less than inspiring? Software maybe, although iOS still has more features than we do. Unfortunately. Hardware? The A7 is the fastest CPU and GPU chip on the market right now, the iPad continues to *dominate* display quality (you'd think a $1000 surface pro could beat it, but despite its still high quality display, it doesn't), and the camera always places well. Build quality is amazing as well. Durability is another question entirely, but the materials Apple uses are top notch.   I might agree with you on software, but I have a lot of respect for Apple's CPU architects and their general hardware engineering team.

Really? You find incremental improvements to cpu speed and making your device thinner and ligher as inspiring? That's the bare minimum any company should do... Apple has not inovated in many years. Who cares if their ipad display has more solution, it is definitely not better than the surface's display, especially the pro. The surface 2 pro has better outdoor visibility (the lumia 2520 even higher), it has 10 touch input, and wacom pen support.  

incremental? The A7 is the fastest chip on the market right now, bar none (except for a single strange result in 3Dmark, out of multiple 3dmark tests). If that's incremental, what is every other improvement? Nonexistent? The iPad has basically the best display on the market. http://www.anandtech.com/show/7460/apple-ipad-air-review/5 Wacom support is also wonderful. And it's not just resolution that matters. Color accuracy is pretty important too. I would argue that the Surface Pro is probably more useful with Wacom support, but AGAIN, Apple is what caused MSFT to create the surface line in the first place. They started it because they didn't trust OEMs to compete with Apple, and it's good that they did. What do you want hardware engineering to be? I don't think you understand the point of it. The entire point is to make something thinner/lighter, and more powerful without sacrificing battery life. It might be the "bare minimum" any company should do, but Apple does it better than everybody else. Otherwise, the Surface would be "even" thinner and lighter. The only place where Apple has been out-hardware engineered is Nokia in camera tech (and possibly even display finally! 2520 looks really impressive). Industrial design has also been rivaled by Microsoft and the Surface line, but all of this is because Apple raised the bar so high.   I'm not an apple fanboy. I don't own any apple products. But I give credit where it's due, and I want Apple to keep succeeding on this front because it makes everybody else's products that much better. Knock Apple for being greedy, but not for their engineering skills.

When was the last time you heard apple working on something different. You have Samsung and LG working on flexibility, you have Nokia working on solar charging. There's NFC, wireless charging, optical image stabilization, among other stuff. Sure iPhones are well rounded, but nothing spectacular for the price they charge

The point is that making it faster, lighter, thinner isn't that interesting. It isn't innovative because it's still thinking "inside the box". Every year they say "we made the camera slightly better, the CPU is faster, the phone is lighter and thinner". That's it. How is that interesting? The A7 might currently put them ahead, but everyone is doing the same improvements so it's not innovative in itself. Innovation is doing things differently, or doing things that no other company is doing. Not just tweaking the same stuff over and over.
The A7 might currently be the fastest, but so what? Nothing currently makes use of 64-bit on the phone, and it's not like the last phone was underpowered. It's like putting a supercharger on your V8 so you can still drive at 60 km/h to the shops :P

I agree, the A7 is a great chip running on a phone that does things impressively smooth given how little RAM it has. But that's just it, for the A7 to be a game changer, or 'inspirational' on my definition of the term, the phone would have needed 4Gs of RAM. It is certainly fast and a modest improvement in efficiency, but if we changed phones everytime someone improved the speed and efficiency of their phone, most of us would be broke. To put my point differently, I don't think that Apple has done anything in some time that would really make other manufacturers nervous or scared that they will lose business that wasn't already going to Apple anyway. I would attribute the initial 5S sales more to brand strength than product offering, as it coincides with their gaining the title of strongest brand. A big part of that valuation is made on people's perception of the brand, but perceptions do not always match reality; as I think is the case here. People still think of Apple as the company they were from 2003-2010 (roughly), but they are no longer that in my opinion.

It's easier to grow faster than the others when you are the smallest one.
For instance, passing from 0% to x% (any x > 0) means you grown up INFINITE% !!

x/0 != "INFINITE" for any value of x. Division by zero is not a defined operation on the integers, rationals, reals, or complex numbers. Also, any growth in a market that is largely saturated is very significant. Blackberry has less marketshare than Windows Phone, but you don't see them easily boosting numbers.

1+1=2

Exactly what I was thinking. Don't get me wrong its good news but considering the low market share its hard not to grow in large percentages.

I disagree. Look at Blackberry. Low market share and no growth. Large growth by WP shows they are doing something right.

No, it means only that they didn't totally screwed up like blackberry.
Before saying they are doing something good, their market share should reach ~15~20%

In a world where Android goes from 75-81, going from 2-4 in the same period is pretty significant considering iPhone dropped over 2 points in the same period and contrasting Blackberry's performance is quite good. You have to get mindshare before you get market share and this increase shows that WP has gained mindshare

Then again, WP has over 2 years of a lead on entering the market (isn't this the same reason given to Android + iOS dominance?).

Who exactly does WP have a lead on?

By your logic, then Apple is doing crappy as well.

While that math is fundamentally correct, the principle here is that we are growing faster still. Which of the other platforms have added 6.5 million year over year? That's still a lot of growth however you look at it, and I like it!

My point is that considering relative grows is pointless.
+1 million devices makes smaller shares growing more than lagers one. All that matters are absolute grows. In the last 4 quarters:
WP: 4,058k - 6,186k - 5,989k - 7,408k
iOS: 23,550k - 43,457k - 38,332k - 31,900k
Android: 122,480k - 144,720k - 156,186k - 177,898k This number are meaningful.

I really don't think anybody in this forum wants to read this (what is essentially the truth). No sane person cares about relative numbers...

tell that to Android that keeps growing... so don't think it is a valid point... Adroid grew and iOS dropped...

Don't worry that laggdroid will com soon, that is even needs the colour of our underwear to work completely

LOL?? You think that makes you funny!

You need to realize that in economy growth is more important than actual numbers. Its what you invest in. Its what will make you the most profit in one year.

You never studied economy, right?

Its not MSF who have done the miracle , its nokia. Without nokia most people wouldn't had developed app which is a basic for an ecosystem, without Nokia Microsoft are just zombies
Love u nokia, i will continue to develop app for u till u carry that name Nokia which means customer satisfaction .....proud to be an nokia owner, bloom and rise from your grave

And without Microsoft, Nokia would still be making Symbian or Android...

...if they still existed at all.  Microsoft have been great for Nokia and vice versa.  It was a partnership that made total sense.

Nokia was the worlds largest smartphone manufacturer when they announced the MS deal. Now they are in 'other' category. Nokia sold nearly 30 million smartphones per quarter when they announced the MS deal. Now they sell 8 million per quarter. Nokia's stock price was around 8€ when they announced the MS deal. Now it is 5€. Nokia made profit with every smartphone they sold. Now they make a loss with every Lumia they sell. Nokia had to sell their phone division to not go bankrupt after the MS deal. How exactly was the MS deal good for Nokia or its investors?

Ya think! Symbian was hemorraghing marketshare at that time. Everybody and their Daddy knew Nokia couldnt continue with Symbian. There was no way but to go down. If there was no Microsoft deal, Nokia would have shut shop a year ago. Atleast now, they get to be in NSN, here maps and R&D. The Nokia employees of S&D have secure future in front of them. So, lets give credit where its due.

They may have been selling that many phones but they were losing market share rapidly, they were in a downward spiral. Also, their Lumia line made profit for the first time this past quarter.

+2520

With Android, Nokia would very likely still be making devices next year.

True. People buy Lumia/WP because it says Nokia on the phones.

It wld possible only when microsoft realises that its os is too backward..compared to ios and android..they are always..100 steps ahead of wp..microsoft really needs to get updates quickly to compete against android and ios..

Would you mind pointing those 100 steps???

Consumer: Full length custom ringtones with an easy setup. Customization outside of colors. Developer: Some control over timed background tasks.

Consumer: Personally I don't want to play full length poems on my cell but good for those who need it. Customizations...like what? Don't compare it with Droid where you need customizations, WP is already beautiful and provides more functionality without any lag.
Developer: No need to give more control to apps where they fight with each other and try to fuck with my battery or heatup the phone itself. No malware please.

MS's OS isn't backwards, it's forwards.  iOS and Android are the ones that have you touching the same lame little icons we've seen in computing for nearly 30 years.  Settings buried in menus everywhere.  Android's UI is worse than any version of Windows, it's only saving grace is that it ran better than the older versions of Windows that it originally competed against, and it has huge developer momentum.  Still ugly and kludgy to use.

Now that MS has the hardware, hopefully now they can release a single great phone across all US carriers at once. Also, it would be great to have a 5xx phone on VZW/Sprint.

YES! that is why I have 3 of them!

When windows phone will surpass ios and android? Only windows phone 8.1 can answer that question. Lets hope for the best.

^ this. We need week view and IE sync and SkyDrive smart files and Cortana and...

+928

This is good news.. Just keep up The good work Nokia! :)

1 year. In Europe WP has 10% market share, only 1% less than iOS. And as the numbers show, iOS market share is even shrinking, so I think it won't take that long for WP to reach 2nd place. And also, when developers see those numbers, they take WP more seriously and make Apps, and when more apps arrive even more people buy. WP will be faster at 2nd place than Tim Cook can say "incredible".

well also to be noted is the fact that marketshare in some countries is starting to fall from its peak because ms is reluctant to take careof many known issues.

Like?

There are many e.g. Not an easy way to create playlists, IE doesnt render some pages correclty, n the biggest of them all its notification system is in a mess.

Congratulations folks, we are on a roll! :D

Msfr is focus on US market when all their market shared growing coming out of US..
Don't be stupid and support other countries like they do on US, and market share will grow even faster!

the only reason they are doing that is cos US is the trendsetter unfortunately. Luk at iphone, the only reason such crappy phones are hits globally is coz it sells in the States 

who said iphone is a hit globally, apple is struggling still to get a decent marketshare in India & china

Apple's poor China marketshare is political - Apple can't get China Telecom to subsidize their phones.  If this were the case in the US, and everyone had to pay $600 for the phone, Apple would have a poor marketshare here, as well.

China telecom would do it if it is lucrative them, y not. Similar is the case in India Apple has placed same conditions as in US carriers would only benefit if their sales is more than a certain threshold also they dont want to compromise on their margins(which ofcourse is their wish) but all these reasons mean iPhone will never be popular and sold on huge numbers here.

Windows phone is superb. Read it LUMIA. That's the reason even after loosing one the next phone i purchased was LUMIA again. Like to see WP overtakes ios at the earliest. Grt going Nokia.

Thx to MS for optimizing low end hardware, that enabled Nokia to sell a good amount of low end hardware. All that's needed is keep pumping out great devices at all price points with advances in software and usability.

Keep it going!

i think it will takes less than 3 years to overtake iOS and it will depend to app developer too XD if they can make great app and games exclusive to WP maybe iOS and Android user will have a change of mind :P anyway good going Nokia

18 months. i.e. End of Q1 2015. primarily coz of andriod users shitfing to WP. Iphone users wud stick to the same OS cos well they are Iphone users :). NOKIA and WP8 ROCKS!!!

But its not work well in india... Few years back Nokia was the best selling phone in India.. But now its Samsung.... And still there is no amber update here.....

I'd say two years minimum. The low end market will get WP over iOS, cuz as we've seen, no one wants a low end iPhone (snobs) and a low end WP works just as well, often with better hardware. WP will never overtake Android until Google is taken down by government thugs...which will never happen as long as they're cooperating with all the gov programs to take over your lives. BWWWAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHHHAAAAA!!

It's hard to predict, but I think it's gonna take 5 years to overtake ios. And that is if things keep going the way they go now. Apple will not stand with hands crossed so I beleive, I phone 6 will be a major improvement over 5/5s. In 10 years, if Apple keep acting like they do now, they will not exist on smartphone market. Anyway, I addopt WP8 and don't have plans to go back to Android ever again, so, fingers crossed for MS!

I regret taking a lumia phone..i wish sum1 could buy my phone..nd give me d amount of money i did spend for this useless phone..which is so slow at even releasing apps for the phone..whatsapp is the worst app on wp..and non of the apps satisfy me to use this phone..instagram,bbm and many more apps yet nt available..wp is very poor..

2yrs to gain 15% market. I dont think wp ever surpass android though i believe it's likely to overcome the Iphone after windows store is unified.

2-3 years. Android has taken off because of budget phones, not because of premium phones.  Premium phones help sell budget phones because of the marketing, but the volume numbers come at the cheaper end. Given that Nokia is hitting the budget market with the 520 range I think they'll overtake Apple using quicker than we think, especially as their budget models are better than cheap Android phones.  

Nokia has taken off (relatively) because of budget phones too (the 520 for example).

if MS continues to ignore OS and innovations: 3 years.  android:  8 to 80 years

Now is the time for Microsoft/Nokia to: Develop an iPhone killer by taking some cues from the Windows Phone concepts (see http://www.wpcentral.com/windows-phone-concept-surface-n and http://www.yankodesign.com/2013/10/31/surface-inspired-phone/) Not only develop more apps, but high quality apps.  One thing I have noticed is that once you’re outside the Nokia Collection of apps, the quality of apps drops and severely .  Microsoft needs to tighten the quality of the apps and maybe offer bonuses to developers (I have no idea what they are paying developers, it’s just a thought). Keep advertising.  It seems as though Microsoft got a better advertising team and their television ads are much, much better.

Passing iPhone market share will happen in 2nd quarter of 2017 in the US market.  1st quarter 2016 globally.

All of you "We're beating iOS in 1-3 years" types are dreaming, hard. Not trolling. Just saying you've got to look at this growth in context. Right now, Windows Phone growth is fueled almost exclusively by the cheapest possible handsets. It's not a top-down growth. Same goes for the app store. We're slowly getting a few bigger names, but honestly a lot of apps in the store are abandonware like Fandango or seriously uncompetitive with other platforms on features. It's great that Instagram finally is getting onboard waaaaaaaaay after they launched on other platforms, but the NEXT Instagram will probably lag as well. Also, Apple is way beyond the competition in terms of profitability/margin, so they don't need to keep up "growth" numbers with any OEM except for perhaps Samsung. All others COMBINED aren't seeing the mobile profits Apple is seeing. Similarly, when it comes to apps, Apple's app store absolutely annihilates Android's still even though Android has bigger marketshare. There are entire app categories (e.g. realtime audio processing) that Android and Windows Phone don't even touch because they don't have the low latency APIs at the system level like iOS does. I work for a huge, HUGE retailer that has mobile apps on iOS, Android, nd Windows Phone. The Windows Phone gets VERY FEW updates, while we add VR, store maps, and all sorts of other cool stuff to the iOS and Android ones. In fact, the 1-star reviews are piling up in the Store right now. Management doesn't care, and they've actually cracked a joke or two about Windows Phone in staff meetings.  Nokia is welcome to rack up volume wins on the low end. This is most certainly important lest Google wouldn't have spent so much time yesterday talking about how KitKat makes cheap handest perform way better. But that's just shoring up one flank. Progress has been made, but we have a LOOOONG (longer than 12-24 months) way to go just to be seen as a legitimate contender, much less "knocking off" Apple. Perspective, people.....

Perhaps outside of North America there will be a leap over the iPhone, but here it will take a while. I went from iPhone to WP a year ago and am still missing a few apps. Don't forget that someone who switches gives up all their app purchases. I had a few hundred dollars in apps that I gave up. I can easily see someone think that they like the WP better but still not switching because of their investment in the Apple ecosystem. And it's not just apps. It's iTunes, Apple TV and iPad as well.

So you are a traitor to Apple shame on you for switching to another company apple products are the BEST smart phone out there

That's wuz up WP do y'all thing

And this is all mainly thanks to low(er) end phones such as Lumia 520. Apple sells premium devices only. The majority of the world is poor. Android is a mess of horrible low end phones. Fluidity on low end Windows Phones is marvellous. Android lags even on fastest units. And those are the advantages Windows Phone has over the others. Cheap units which offer the same core experience as the premium ones. :)

   I believe that the adoption of WP8 really depends on the adoption of W8 as a whole. If they can keep making corporate deals with companies like Delta and getting tablets into the hands of people, people will start to see how easy and friendly the OS is, and will start to look for it on their personal accounts. I also believe that they need a couple killer features that will have people talking. The Pureview cameras are a good start. Hopefully, Cortana (please don't change the name) can be "The Next Big Thing" that moves the industry forward. If that happens, I give it three years.

Congrats MS&Nokia!

Go Windows Phone! just got my Lumia 925 and that thing is amazing!!

Most likely pass iOS in markets other than North America by Q4 2014. North America might take a lot longer

Wow Nokia go go.

2 Years if:
1. Ms fully endorse app dev to port their apps to WP ecosystem
2. Press down handset price
3. Fasten WP8 development
4. Branding and speed up WP8 handset distribution (until now my country haven't had L1020 on sale)
5. Working on BBM on WP8 since it's very popular in my country and it has a HUGE market. I've been in apple, android and blackberry ecosystem. So far WP8 is number two in OS and built quality, behind iOS and lead the rest. So... Good luck WP8, i hope u run a solid strategy coz it's really sad to see crappy OS dominate the market right now.

I sure hope WP 8.1 manages to pull them through!

I'm calling October 26, 2014.

I suspect it will take about 6 years for WP to be comparable to iPhone. Still, the iPhone turns a profit on every phone sold and the number is higher than an average WP phone as it sits today. To truly be considered a competition in terms of sales numbers, dollar value and innovation, I think my 6 yr prediction is not too far off.......barring a mind blowing innovation from Apple/Google which may prevent users from flocking to WP. There are so many things at play. My 6 yr prediction is mainly based on how long it will take for the entire 8.1 eco-system to mature enough to be able to turn a profit out of.

NOkia leads WP phones.  this is why i bought some shares.  i want in for the ride.

I predict two more years before it surpasses Apple globally. Never in the US.

Android ( Google ) is EVIL :)

If we could have all the apps, it would be flawless victory

About time!

IPhone will make larger screen phones and a lot of people will jump to that....so WP will need to start heavy innovation

i'dsay 3 years from now wp will be in the 2nd place

Thanks to Nokia, mostly. not a fanboy, that's just the facts. Just the facts please.

If they keep the apps coming, I'd say WP has a great chance to catch apple in 2-3 years.
Now lets see that notification center

I hate this sort of metric.  It's like I sold two $3 sandwiches this quarter compared to one $3 sandwich the same quarter last year, so technically I just beat Google's percentage revenue growth.  Doubling a 2% market share or selling 10 million units in a quarter isn't that big of a deal.  Android is moving over a million units a day.  Let's focus on the good things the MS ecosystem is bringing to the table and leave the smoke and mirrors elsewhere.

that

It would be more like 10.2 million sandwiches in the past quarter so I fail to see how the math is smoke and mirrors. While 4% may not sound tremendous, this refers to the world market share for a product category where sales are exponentially increasing year after year across the board. When your current sales are trending up while your competitors sales remain at or around the same level, that means that the platform is increasing in sales exponentially more than they are and that is a big deal.

The math is only smoke and mirrors when its referenced as "a doubling" or "Windows Phone is the world’s fastest growing smartphone operating system".  If FooOS had sold one smartphone 2012 q3 and 3 smartphones 2013 q3, it would have been the fastest growing smartphone OS by one set of metrics.  That's a technicality, ala smoke and mirrors.  It makes it sound like some phenomenal goal has been reached when it really hasn't.  It's easy to double a 1% or 2% market share for a company with as much cash as MS has.  

Considering Nokia and Microsoft did this without having Instagram, Snapchat, and Vine is really impressive. Nokia has been making some really awesome hardware as of late, while Apple's been doing incremental updates gives Nokia a big advantage. I would say by end of next year, we'll see even more growth, not sure if that'll steal iPhone customers or not, but definitely the low-end Android Market and Blackberry

It should really be Apple and Microsoft as the top two, with all the rest just rounding out some low end feature phone replacements...so that everyone can basically say they have a smartphone regardless of price or place in the world =[

Man, I'll pop a bottle of champaign the day that happens and I'll spend the day relishing the flabbergast faces of those skinny jeans wearing f... reaks at the verge

I have my Nokia Lumia 1020 for 2 months now. I am still smiling!  I say we hit the Windows Phone OS tipping point a couple of months ago. I already predicted that in 3 to 5 years we will beat iOS Phone marketshare. 

Perhaps a more interesting metric is that Nokia has passed HTC and LG. While HTC clearly supports WP, it isn't anywhere close to the support seen from Nokia. I'll be replacing my 8X with a Lumia 929 as soon as it is available. The level of dedication to enriching the experience from Nokia is the reason for their dominance in this platform. They seem to b using Samsung's strategy with Android. So far, it seems to be working really well for them.

I would hazard a guess that if there were an iphone with a 4.5 to 5 inch screen with a more common aspect ratio, their (Apple's) market share would jump. I like IOS, but the screen is too narrow and too small overall. Keep the current iphone footprint so as not to shun the devotees and small handed, bump the screen size to appeal to more conventional comparisons. I like what windows phone is doing via nokia, and they need to continue pushing into smaller markets not occupied by the other two as well (asha with meego like OS), low to mid range phones like the 521 and 800 series, while keeping the nerds happy with their big screenies. Give it time and Windows should occupy 33.33% of the market soon enough. Profitability is another story.

I am really glad that I bought a Windows phone mine is Lumia 620 and its almost like a galaxy s4 in the speed windows phone is a light os and its growing in the market but android mini phones or low end phones are all garbage because the OS is very heavy for a 512 ram and it will definitely lag so yeah I love Nokia and windows phone go Nokia

Congratulation people! WE made it happen!

I'm drunk, but we made it happen :D

Really hope it keeps growing and faster from this point. We need a yearly refresh and fill up those missing gaps. If MS+Nokia can do that then I don't see why wouldn't WP be a real threat to Android and iOS

WP is the fastest growing platform but in 3 years it is still under 5% global market share. What a irony

2016! by this rate anyways

The percentage will grow.. . All those phone features we crave for will be there. .. notifications, file attachments, etc, etc.. it is inevitable as the system matures. Its not about whether WP becomes 3rd or 2nd. Its about how good it is to us, the users. Those percentages are just numbers. I cant be bothered with.

I have been very happy with my Windows phones first a Nokia Lumia 900 on AT&T Now a Lumia 928 on Verizon that I switch of with sometime with a original Motorola droid maxx. With all the newer apps,games and updates I find myself using the droid less often and longer time with the windows phone my Lumia 928. Too your question I can say they are really wright on the edge of passing Apple as my girlfriend has a Apple 5C and can say it really pales compared to my 928. I mean in just about everything the 928 just blows it away as well have tried the 5S and feel the same way too. So it is not the hardware that is holding back Windowsphone from passing Apple I can say though the haft to keep working hard on the software. What I mean by this I can say they need to please the third party companies even more as well no drop message menu or something like Siri??? Maybe when Windows phone 8.1 comes out we will see these thing and then they will pass Apple and then Andriod. When the make happy the third party companies by making Windows phone to program more easily then Andriod and Apple then they will have their prize first place in the market. 

Where did that orange 520 shell come from? I need to get that asap!

What MS needs Is a new web browser. Bing Is awesome but it's just a search engine. IE sucks plain and simple.

What makes it suck?

They should fix the restricted OS, video restrcted and many things. I use Lumia 520 now in GDR3, no microSD inserted, today have just experienec restart by itself wihout any reason, what the good of its OS? Before in I updated to Lumia Amber, I had experienced 18 times restart by itself (at that microSD 16 GB no class was inserted). After in Lumia Amber and now in GDR3, with microSD no class inserted the phone restarted, without microSD inserted the phone is restart too, what the good of Windwos Phone OS? Performance may smooth, no lag, secure but how about inserted no class microSD the phone restarts itself? My previous Galaxy Ace 2 was still better than Lumia 520. Better don't recommend Lumia 520, go for Android mid end or high end is better decision.

Woattt superlagdroid better than wp8 gdr3? Woat a joke..

It's not a joke. If I don't experience restart by itself for what I complaint? User will complaint if he/she experience something that he/she doesn't like on his/her phone, it's common. Now, which one better, restricted video or not restricted video? Which one better, has notification center today in Android or doesn't has notification center in Windows Phone? Better/comfortable using Android WhatsApp that has video sending (not recroding) or Windows Phone WhatsApp? Every user has different opinion and preference.

I have lowend sony xperia e with android 4 (ics). In terms of the price is the same type with lumia 520. And I was very disappointed. The screen/display is very ugly like vga, which I hate from android, I've killed/andtask aplications everytime.
I 've disabled the background task some applications, but its still n always running in the background. My android so slow, super lag n i very hate it...
Take my phone memory, very large. For only facebook, get 300mb.
Sorry my friend, for me: android middle to lower type is very bad and sucks.
Sorry if my english not good.

I had used low end Android too before Galaxy Ace 2 in Oct 2011, using Xperia mini. Well, for 512 MB that's not satisfy me too. But when I bought Galaxy Ace 2 in March 2012, I was satisfy. Opera Mini, Firefox, file manager, ePSXe, Zenonia games, Aralon: Sword and Shadows HD games. While in Windows Phone those apps and games aren't available. I don't use Facebook app in Android, I use Opera Mini.

Can't freaking wait to see apple and their iPhone glue their head on Microsoft and windows phone abs.

Like difficult to create playlists, not able to assign static IPs while connecting to wifi, and the biggest problem is its unreliable notification system ( MS has already accepted this )

Today I have updated my Lumia 520 to gdr3 .........feeling happy ......

It will grow at much speedy pace after windows phone 8.1 release..

Not surprising, considering both iOS and Android have little room to grow and BB isn't making any impact.

When Apple twist numbers to make OSX look like it has more than the 7% it has by saying similar things (fastest growing, fastest adoption of new OS releases, best selling model, etc.) I call them on that BS and I have to do the same here. When you have 2% and you double it to 4%, of course you grew the most relative to your own starting position, but at the same time Android's sales and percentage growth relative to the entire market was larger. Android grew from 130 million sold in Q3 '12 to 205 million in Q3 '13, that's 75 million in growth compared to 6.5 million for WP. When you look at percentage Android grew from 75% to 81%, so while WP grew 2%, Android grew 6%.  iOS grew from 27 million to 34 million, which is pretty much the same growth WP saw in number of units So WP is definitely gaining on iOS (and rightly so, not just because Apple stopped innovating but mostly because they won't sell low end devices, it's a recipe for small market share and exactly what happened to them with computers) Android is still the fastest growing Mobile OS in the real world

cause its the best of course WINDOWS beats apple in computers and sure as hell it will beat apple in smart phones windows was first any ways before apple on smart phones so its only common sense windows will reclaim its number one place eventually  long live windows ......R.I.P. WEB OS

Definitely agree with this article.  Keep it up MS and Nokia.

I own a Lumia 920, Windows 7 laptop and Surface Pro 2.  I am a fan of the Windows ecosystem and it works well for me.  But I feel that so many people have bitten the poisoned Apple that MS has a long road ahead to pave before they become the company where people line up a week in advance for a new product launch.  I would venture to say that if MS were to give away Windows Phones and Surface RT 2 for the holiday season, Apple would still sell more iPhones and iPads.

WP has a lot of thinngs going for it including major User Friendliness. My wife asked me how to do some things on her Android phone last weekend and I had a real hard time finding and setting up some basic settings. I showed on my Windows phone how easy it is to do the same things. Also, I am often seeing samples of how IOS is too locked down. Yesterday, I tried to use my ELM327 obdii reader on a friends vehicle to check some engine codes etc and the devlce didnt even show up on his iPhone bluetooth. Worked great on my Lumia 920. A Goole search told me that Apple blocked those devices.
   

I just don't see it.  I'm completely technology agnostic:  if WP can provide me with a decent platform for developing apps and enough corporate customers who'll buy into them, I really don't care.  I don't develop for the open marketplace.  I develop in-house apps. WP have made far too many mistakes.  iPhone and Android didn't make those mistakes.  Why should I take WP seriously?  That's not rhetorical, it's an honest question.  MSFT doesn't care about people like me.  After the RT disaster and the ongoing train wreck of 8.x, watching .NET go to pieces -- mind you, MSFT make great kit.  And they used to care about developers. Just not developers like me, anymore.  And while they don't, why bother?

Sorry to troll... but Nokia has made plenty of concessions just to get to those numbers. Just last week I saw three Windows Phones selling from our local dealer (Telcel Mexico) for under $200 bucks without a contract (down here in Mexico we have several prepaid plans that offer no subsidies). Those weren't bad phones. It was the Lumia 520 with the S4 Snapdragon Paul Thurrott said, last september that the Lumia 520 is the best selling WP phone, selling more units than any other model of Windows phone, PC or tablet. As you can see, those are Asha prices, well below cost. I don't think there's any margin of profit neither for Nokia nor Microsoft. Ironically, this is the perfect market segment for Windows Phone, when you don't pay much and you don't expect a lot of apps aside from those built in. If you come to grasp to it, you'll see that this market was left vacant when Palm switched to WebOS and was later abandoned by Nokia when they dropped Symbian. I'm not sure there's profit to be made from those kinds of phones, unless you find a strategy for pushing other products through the deal, including XBox Games, accesories or even PC software. If they can hammer a deal with SanDisk, D-Link, Kaspersky, Intuit or themselves, I see a lot of market for Device + Service deals, including single purpose devices for Virus Monitoring, Finance checking, Network health, etc. My two cents.  

This is a good example of what happens when Microsoft leaves the entity to work without corporate intervention.  If I'm not mistaken, that's why XBOX managed to become successful also.

But I have a Nokia 520 and it's a damn good phone for $100.  It doesn't have a compass in it, no audio DSP settings, and it's a little slower but for most things, you wouldn't notice or would just get used to it. If this is the reason, they finally found their niche market.   Lauren

Ten times nothing is still nothing...