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Windows Phone Beats BlackBerry for Third Place in the U.S., but Victory May Be Fleeting

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News Posted: Wed, Feb 6 2013 2:55 PM
While Samsung and Apple continue to fight to the death for the top spot in the mobile OS market, the rest of the top players in the field lag far behind. However, there is a quiet duel for third place behind those two juggernauts, and Microsoft has just overtaken BlackBerry.

According to Strategy Analytics, in Q4 2012 Windows Phone beat the BlackBerry OS in terms of market share, and it’s the first time this has happened since 2006. (That was seven years ago, folks, or approximately an eon in tech time.)

Windows Phone 8

This isn’t terribly surprising; Microsoft is pushing its Windows Phone 8 platform hard, and the operating system reaps the benefits of running on some strong hardware from the likes of Nokia and HTC. And of course, there are still a certain number of handsets running Windows Phone 7, which bolsters those numbers. For its part, BlackBerry is a brand that has been losing its luster for a while now.

BlackBerry 10

However, Microsoft’s victory over BlackBerry might not last long; users have been waiting for the newest BlackBerry OS for months, and now that BlackBerry 10 is here--on all four major U.S. carriers, and with at least one handset that’s all touchscreen--sales will no doubt spike.

The question is how big the spike will be, and whether or not users are still interested enough in the platform to keep buying in.
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Shadizzle replied on Wed, Feb 6 2013 4:54 PM

I got to play with the new Z10 at CES, and really its pretty awesome. Their emphasis on "flow" really was well applied here. Really you just have to pick one up and use it, its hard to explain... Found a few little things here and there that could be improved upon, however a real smooth operating and great overall handset. I really liked how evernote is integrated to the OS itself, making note taking and modifying a BREEZE compared to my current droid. I am also a big fan of the clean no button look BB and a couple others out there are going for.

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Dave_HH replied on Wed, Feb 6 2013 8:20 PM

We really looking forward to evaluating this phone soon. Stay tuned. We hope to have a review unit in here shortly.

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SmogHog replied on Wed, Feb 6 2013 8:44 PM

The 1st sentence in the 1st paragraph is a bit confusing.

Is the article suggesting that Google Android OS used in a large number of phones from numerous makers is a Samsung OS.

If Samsung were the only maker using Android would there even be a contest.

Isn't it really Android vs IOS for the top spot?

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Dave_HH replied on Wed, Feb 6 2013 9:06 PM

You are correct, SH. However, of all the Android handsets on the market competing with Apple, Samsung has by far the largest market share in the Android arena. Regardless, as you note, this article is about platforms, not manufacturers so much.

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SmogHog replied on Wed, Feb 6 2013 9:48 PM

ABI Research released a study that predicts a massive 1.4 billion smartphones to be in-use by the end of 2013, 798 million of them Android-based. This set of numbers also suggests that Windows Phone will be in around 45 million smartphones while Apple will retain the number 2 spot with 294 million units.

The study suggests that by the end of this year the world will have 268 million tablets in-use.

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