Microsoft’s mobile platform has made some impressive gains over the last year and the latest data from Kantar Worldpanel show that Windows Phone’s market share has passed the 10% barrier across Europe’s five biggest markets, a huge improvement from a year ago when it accounted for under 5% of smartphones sold across the U.K., France, Germany, Spain and Italy. Windows Phone sales have gotten a big boost in Europe thanks to the efforts of Nokia, which has long been a popular brand in the Eurozone and which this year released some top-notch handsets such as the Lumia 1020 alongside some very competitive budget handsets such as the Lumia 520.
In contrast to Windows Phone, BlackBerry’s handset sales have continued to sputter. According to Kantar, BlackBerry’s market share has fallen below the 1% threshold in key markets such as the United States, Germany and Spain. In fact, BlackBerry’s best showing in a major market surveyed by Kantar was in the United Kingdom, where BlackBerry devices had a market share of just 3.3%. In Spain and China, BlackBerry’s market share has fallen all the way to 0% while in Japan the company is barely hanging on with a market share of 0.3%. Australia was the only market that Kantar surveyed that saw BlackBerry’s market share increase over the last year but even there the company’s handsets accounted for just 1.8% of all smartphones in Q3 2013.
