Microsoft posts big gains in smartphones - but Apple and Android remain dominant

UK and Italy register some of the biggest increases in market share for Windows 8 phones

Microsoft has registered its first strong gains in share in the smartphone operating system market following the launch of Windows Phone 8, with the UK and Italy registering some of the biggest increases in market share.

According to figures from market research company Kantar, Microsoft increased its share of the UK smartphone market from three per cent to 6.7 per cent between February 2012 and February 2013. Its market share was largely taken from Symbian, which Nokia discontinued in favour of Windows Phone two years ago, and BlackBerry, which only released its latest phone, the Z10, at the end of January.

In the same period, Apple's iOS increased its share marginally from 28.9 per cent to 29 per cent, according to Kantar's figures, while Android increased by 10 percentage points from 48.3 per cent to 58.3 per cent.

BlackBerry, meanwhile, saw its share of the UK market fall from 16.8 per cent to 5.1 per cent, a fall of 11.7 percentage points that the company is hoping it will claw back with new releases this year, based on its new BlackBerry 10 smartphones and more touch-oriented devices.

Across the world, the figures are very different.

In pragmatic Germany, Apple's share of the market has declined from 21.6 per cent to 18.7 per cent, while Android dominates with a 71 per cent share of the market. BlackBerry has dropped to just 0.6 per cent of the market, while Windows Phone has a similar share of the market to the UK.

Microsoft's strongest market is Italy, where it enjoys a 13.1 per cent share of the market after a steep fall in market share for Symbian devices.

In China, meanwhile, Kantar estimates that the market is largely split between Apple iOS devices with 25.8 per cent of the market, on the one hand, with Android holding a 68.7 per cent share. Microsoft's share in China is negligable in comparison, with just 1.4 per cent of the Chinese market.