While there have been reports suggesting that Windows Phone might attain the second position in the global smartphone market by 2015, the records of 2013 just prove that these reports could be true.
According to statistics from ABI Research, the last quarter of 2013 saw a growth of a whopping 104 percent in the shipment of Windows Phone handsets compared to the last quarter of 2012. The Q4 of 2013 was responsible for shipments of as many as 10.9 million Windows Phone device, which is 19 percent higher than the Q3 shipments. The platform however accounts for just 4 percent of the total smartphone shipments in Q4.
As expected, Android continues to dominate the global smartphone markets with a massive 77 percent share, which is almost 50 percent higher than Q4 of 2012. Interestingly, of the 71.1 million Android units shipped, 25 percent ran on a forked version of Android and mostly based in China.
Apple, which is still standing strong at the second position, showed just 7 percent growth in Q4 2013 compared to Q4 of 2012, mainly because of its focus on the premium segment, but it did show a massive comeback of 51 percent compared to Q3 2013. BlackBerry had disheartening results with an immense drop of 54 percent compared to Q4 of 2012.
