What I gather from this thread:

WP is hitting 10% marketshare in Europe
No one that superchunk knows likes and uses WP

Good to know!

Very nice. My contract is up for renewal in a few months. I'm leaning towards not actually taking on a new contract and just buying the handset. I've always liked Nokias but their insistence on relying on Symbian OS with their early smartphones meant I ended up on Android. I may well go back to Nokia next year as the Lumias look fantastic, and tbh beyond web browsing, I don't really use my Android for anything else.

The irony here is, Microsoft profits big off Android, they make roughly $5 from every one sold.
So even if they loose, they still win I guess.

On the flip side, I love my Lumia 920 and even thinking about jumping on-board with the 1020 or 1520.
The Metro interface works really really well on a mobile phone, not so much on a Desktop PC with multi-monitors and a keyboard and mouse.

If you're looking for a cheap Nokia the 620 is absolutely amazing for the price. I picked it up for 99 bucks few months ago on a fire sale to use as an video/mp3 player it blew me away for the price. NFC, SD card, front and rear camera, screen quality, build quality absolutely destory anything at that price range.

Was on sale here in Canada for 79 bucks for Black Friday so I got 3 more as Christmas gifts.

http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/product/nokia-telus-nokia-lumia-620-prepaid-smartphone-npphnoklum620bkclm/10269224.aspx?path=3c8d70ef77734ec0aa135635399edc6aen02

I can't say that I was expecting WP to grow so much. But I must say that I feel glad that the iPhone is losing market, because I think it cost way too much for what you get. I don't like the idea of people paying more than they should.

Also it's good with WP on the market too, to get some more competition. But I think that Android will always be for the phones what Windows is for the computers. More or less.

Wow why is it so impossible to have a civil discussion about Window's phone market share on this website?

The delusion in this thread is astounding.

I guess the Vita is a roaring success too considering it has more worldwide market share than Windows phones

Like has been said earlier, it's easy to double your market share when you have very little to start with.

It's an undeniable fact that Windows Phone Share has increased; however,

* Most of those increases do not happen due to "Windows" but rather "Nokia". People are simply going for a better alternative than Android if they cannot afford (an unsubsidized) Iphone or simply prefer Nokia.

* Nokia is still FAR from recouping its lost market share, and those gains are small in comparison.

* A good deal of those gains are about collecting the leftovers after the dismal ends of Blackberry and the former Nokia.

* Android, the biggest competition, is still gaining ground, with shares up to 80% globally, also increasing pretty much everywhere.

* There is not much room left to grow other than gaining ground at the cost of Apple & Google, which will get harder and harder.

* Windows Phone is a distant third in the largest and most significant markets. 4.8% in US, virtually non-existing in China and Japan.

* MS wants to be a global player by selling its OS to everyone, but so far, 3/4 of its sales come from Nokia, which MS owns! This defeats the purpose, as its hardly profitable from MS point of view.

I disagree with most of your post but unlike most people here I want to have a civil discussion...

The thing is Microsoft isn't living in dream land when it comes to Windows Phone marketshare. They understand the market and know they won't demand massive marketshare numbers in the near future. Infact, they predict to have 15% marketshare by 2018. That is certanly doable.

http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-gets-less-than-10-per-windows-phone-unit-7000020153/

MS also no longer wants to sell the WP OS to anyone. They instead want to sell the ecosystem and services and it is becoming increasingly difficult to do this, even for Google with 80% marketshare. Samsung is cooking their own Android as is HTC and rest. iOS has the most sound ecosystem and Apple revenues show this hand over fist. Google has yet to prove that they can make money using Android and its "everything is free" model without advertising revenue.

Finally, one of the reasons for Nokia/MS merger is increased profitability on each device sold. As it stands, MS has to give Nokia a cash incentive and sells the OS license at a discounted rate. They make less than $10 per device sold.  After the merger they are expecting $40 per device.

http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-gets-less-than-10-per-windows-phone-unit-7000020153/

"Redmond also believes that taking over Nokia's devices and services unit will provide "entry in to key growth markets."

Microsoft says that the current partnership between itself and Nokia means that for every Windows Phone sold, the gross profit margin is under $10 per unit based on royalty payments. Through the Nokia unit acquisition, Microsoft believes this will increase to $40 -- potentially making the risky deal a profitable force in the future. "

Feel free to lead by example and post something OT worth discussing...