Windows Phones share of sales rose to an all-time high in Europe during the three months ending July 2013, according to data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. Its share hit 8.2 per cent across the EU5 markets: UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain.
The OS was most popular in France, with an 11 per cent share, and least popular in Spain, at 0.7 per cent – though the latter market is dominated by Android, with an astounding 89.9 per cent of smartphones sold in Spain running Googles OS.
“Android and Apple take the lion’s share of the headlines and continue to dominate smartphone sales, so it’s easy to forget that there is a third OS emerging as a real adversary,” said Dominic Sunnebo, strategic insight director at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. “Windows Phone, driven largely by lower priced Nokia smartphones such as the Lumia 520, now represents around one in 10 smartphone sales in Britain, France, Germany and Mexico. For the first time the platform has claimed the number two spot in a major world market, taking 11.6 per cent of sales in Mexico.” 
According to Kantar, WP isn’t converting Apple or Android users, only 27 per cent of whom change OS when replacing their handset. Much of its growth is coming from people buying their first smartphone – who account for 42 per cent of its sales over the past year – and possibly from ex-BlackBerry owners.
BlackBerry lost share in all nine markets measured – except for China, where its share stayed put at 0.1 per cent – and dropped by as much as 25 per cent in Mexico, seemingly cannibalised by the rising popularity of Android (up 31.7 per cent).
