Windows Phone overtakes BlackBerry in the U.S.

By David Nield March 8, 2014

windows phone overtakes blackberry u s lumia 630 leak — Image used with permission by copyright holder

There’s good news and bad news for executives in Redmond today — Windows Phone’s market share has edged above BlackBerry’s, but the overall size of Microsoft’s slice of the pie hasn’t budged. According to the latest data from ComScore, Windows Phone now accounts for 3.2 percent of handsets in the United States, with BlackBerry lagging behind on 3.1 percent.

Dig deeper into the figures and the news isn’t so encouraging for Microsoft. That 3.2 percent market share is the same as it was last October, so Windows Phone hasn’t made any inroads into the iOS/Android stranglehold. BlackBerry’s share fell from 3.6 percent, and it looks like it’s the iPhone that has taken up the slack.

Android remains the most widely used mobile operating system in the U.S., seen on 51.7 percent of handsets (down 0.5 percent since October). iOS comes in second with 41.6 percent (a rise of 1 percent over the last three months). The market continues to expand, so Microsoft did sell more handsets during the previous quarter, but it will be disappointed not to have made more of an impact in terms of overall share.

Elsewhere in the ComScore figures, Facebook was the app with the widest reach, appearing on 77.6 percent of mobile phones running iOS or Android. Google Play was second (52.4 percent) and YouTube came in third (49.7 percent).Google and Facebook also dominated the list of sites accessed via mobile browsers.

For BlackBerry, the dark times continue — earlier in the week CEO John Chen gave the company a 50/50 chance of surviving, saying that he plans to have the firm profitable again by March 2016. Microsoft, meanwhile, will be pinning its hopes on the 2014 range of Nokia Lumia handsets, including the recently leaked Lumia 630.

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Dave is a freelance journalist from Manchester in the north-west of England. He's been writing about technology since the…

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