We’ve known that Microsoft’s mobile OS has been gaining market share as of late, but new data from Kantar Worldpanel shows that the OS is performing very well than previously expected, particularly in the United States. In fact, the OS is growing at a slightly faster pace than Google’s Android.
Windows Phone accounted for 5.6 percent of all smartphone sales in the three months ending March 2013, according to the report, up from 3.7 percent a year ago. In comparison, Android’s share rose from 47.9 percent to 49.3 percent, while Apple slipped from 44.6 percent to 43.7 percent. Blackberry fell from 2.6 percent to just 0.9 percent. Kantar states that Nokia had the most to gain from Windows Phone growth, which is attributed largely to first-time smartphone buyers, which make up about half of the United States mobile industry.
Windows Phone’s UI and Live Tiles are appealing to users at large. Kantar noted that from its own survey, 52 percent of people who swapped to Windows Phone had a feature handset beforehand. By contrast, 55 percent of people who had bought an iPhone had previously owned another smartphone.
Despite the launch of new hardware powered by it’s BlackBerry 10 OS, the company formerly known as Reseach in Motion is still having a very hard time getting users, and made up only 0.9 percent of smartphone sales in the last quarter, down from 2.6% a year ago.
Analysts and the Kantar report believed that Windows Phone will continue to capture more consumers who are looking to adopt smartphones, and the OS will certainly capture its share of the iOS and Android crowd, not just the BlackBerry and Symbian crowd it’s been capturing as of late. With more than half of consumers in the United States still owning a feature phone as well as the fact that Windows Phone has reached 15% market share in many markets around the world, there’s definitely room for further growth.