Forget BlackBerry and its ailing BB10 OS, Nokia has claimed that Windows Phone is now ‘the third ecosystem’ on the smartphone scene behind Android and iOS.
Although Google and Apple continue to dominate the smartphone sector, Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform has slowly been gaining inroads on the competition, with Nokia now stating that the software at the heart of its flagship Lumia devices, not longstanding smartphone presence BlackBerry is now the game’s third biggest player.
“I think it is fair to say, Windows Phone is the third ecosystem,” Bryan Biniak, Nokia’s Vice President and General Manager of Developer Experience said speaking at the company’s Nokia World conference today.
He added: “We started with about 7,000 applications several years ago, now we have 175,000 applications in the store, but more importantly what we are seeing is the trajectory of device sales growing quarter after quarter.”
As well as lauding the progress the Windows Phone platform has made since launching in 2011, Biniak was keen to push the continued growth of the mobile operating system, suggesting interest is now hitting a tipping point that will appeal to developers and could cause a snowballing effect of growth.
“When you look at the results, this is something that is very exciting, not just to us but to developers,” Biniak announced. “With that applications sell devices and devices sell applications, it is a very interesting symbiotic relationship.
“We are growing in the most important markets around the world and the end result is significant growth in downloads of applications to devices. That is a key measure of success for developers – growing downloads, growing revenue, and ultimately engagement with consumers.”
With Nokia today unveiling two all new Windows Phone powered handsets, the operating system which the Finnish manufacturer is currently almost single handedly supporting has been bolstered by the 6-inch Nokia Lumia 1520 and the equally sizeable Nokia Lumia 1320.
Although BlackBerry dominated the smartphone market for a number of years, the Canadian manufacturer and platform creator has struggled in recent times, with the likes of the BlackBerry Z10, BlackBerry Q10 and, most recently, the BlackBerry Z30 all failing to help rectify the company’s troubles.
Windows Phone and BlackBerry OS/BB10 have been battling for third place in the mobile OS market share stakes for some time and, although Nokia's statement does not reference any dedicated figures, it is widely believed that while WP is on the up, BB continues to go down.
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