Sales of the Nokia Lumia 520 are part of the reason for the rise in Windows Phone sales, according to Kantar.
Microsoft has been hyping up the growth of Windows Phone lately, with company executives saying it is now the firm third mobile OS in sales, behind iOS and Android. While Windows Phone still has a lot of catching up to do to get to the level of Apple and Google"s operating systems, new reports from the research firm Kantar WorldPanel claim to show big year-over-year gains for Windows Phone in the second quarter of 2013.
In the United States, Kantar claims that Windows Phone has gone up to 4 percent in the smartphone market, up 1.1 percent from the same period a year ago. Android is still number one with a 51.3 percent share with iOS in second place at 42.5 percent.
However, Windows Phone has seen bigger gains in parts of Europe. In a separate press release, Kantar states that in the UK, Windows Phone now commands 8.6 percent of the smartphone market in the second quarter, up from 4.5 percent from the same period a year ago. There"s an even bigger jump in France, where Windows Phone holds nine percent of the market share, up from just 2.3 percent a year ago.
In its report for Europe, Kantar said that sales of low end Windows Phone devices, such as the Nokia Lumia 520, were part of the reason for the sales upsurge for Microsoft"s OS. The report stated:
Selling large volumes of lower end smartphones is a good way of getting Windows seen in the hands of potential customers’ friends and family, convincing them there isn’t a risk in choosing the operating system. The majority of people are trend followers, not trend setters, so Windows needs to get as many smartphones to market as quickly as possible.
Earlier this month, the mobile app ad provider AdDuplex stated that the Lumia 520 was now the most popular smartphone on its network, and today"s report would seem to confirm that this cheap Windows Phone device is selling well.
Source: Kantar WorldPanel