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With Android and iOS dominating the smartphone marketshare, the third spot in the mobile OS wars has been the subject of intense competition in the past few years. CyanogenMod is a forked version of Android that is based on AOSP but is separate from Google. The popular ROM has seen an incredible surge in popularity over the past few years and was even able to raise 80 million in capital to help in its push to become the third largest player in the smartphone OS battle - has the company now succeeded?
The company, which has previously partnered with Microsoft, claims that it now has 50 million users, a number which it claims is more than the Redmond-based company"s Windows Mobile. That"s up from 10 million in 2014 and is certainly a massive increase in adoption, especially since, until recently, installing the ROM required tedious effort and greater-than-average technical ability on the part of the user. Still, the company is claiming that with only 50 million users, it has already surpassed the marketshare of Windows Mobile and Blackberry combined.
While 50 million users is no laughing matter, the company seems to be mistaken in its belief of having achieved its coveted dream of becoming the provider of the third most used OS in the mobile space. A quick study of Microsoft"s financial statements - easily accessible online - reveals that over the past five quarters, the company has already sold 42.5 million Lumia devices. Including sales of Windows Phone 8 devices before the Lumia division was bought by Microsoft, Windows 7 devices and whatever number of active devices is still running on Blackberry OS, it seems quite unlikely that CyanogenMod has more users than Windows Phone, let alone Windows Phone and Blackberry combined.
Source: Cyanogen via Android Central