Neowin

Microsoft has yet to offer any official sales of Windows Phone-based smartphones. As a result, we have to rely on research firms for their stats. For the fourth quarter of the year, some firms claimed that Windows Phone sales increased in the US, while others stated that the market share for Windows Phone actually went down.

This week, Gartner revealed its worldwide smartphone sales numbers for the fourth quarter of 2012 and it was good news for Windows Phone and Microsoft. The firm claims that Windows Phone-based smartphone sales went up to 6.1855 million units for the quarter, which is a 124.6 percent increase compared to the same period a year ago. In the fourth quarter of 2012, when Microsoft launched Windows Phone 7.5, only 2.759 million units were sold.

Microsoft's overall market share of the smartphone business went up to three percent for the fourth quarter of 2012, compared to just 1.8 percent a year ago. Even though BlackBerry's share has gone way down in the past year, it still managed to stay ahead of Windows Phone with 3.5 percent of the smartphone market.

Overall, the number of smartphones sold worldwide in 2012 came in at 207.7 million units, up 38.3 percent from 2011. Android-based smartphones had the most market share at 69.7 percent, followed by iOS at 20.9 percent.

Source: Gartner | Image via Gartner

WP's sold at least 11m in Q4 2012...so this is wrong.

its getting there! Nokia will keep improving their sales and more OEMs will support WP im sure!

Still it will be a long run, its not a sprint anyway!

Android is a monster but it took time to start selling like this, same for Iphone, same for everything. Look at Xbox it didnt start strong, Xbox 1 was considered by many a failure.

Microsoft has a great OS on Smartphones, for me is the best, the most beautiful but tastes are tastes.

I Love my Lumia 710, its perfect for want i want in a SmartPhone, flawless.

They ecossystem is neat, my Windows 8 runs flawless, i hope the next Xbox delivers aswell.

Oh my god...this article actually contains so much fail. MS confirmed in their earnings release that they sold 4x more WP's in Q4 2012 than they did in Q4 2011...so +400%+ is a more accurate figure, not +124%.

How Microsoft accounts for sales may not exactly correspond with units shipped to retail. Remember that Microsoft's business is selling software licenses to OEMs, whereas Gartner is trying to estimate how many hardware units OEMs ship to retail. It could very well be that Microsoft has sold licenses for Windows Phone which have yet to be installed onto hardware and shipped to retail.

Yes same as Windows 8.

60m Sold but many to OEM wich will be sold this year ofc.

670m Windows 7 Licenses Sold to OEMs, doesnt mean 670m people using W7, in fact must means 1 bilion since Piracy is big on Windows.

Well in 1 year Windows 8 will eat that marketshare, people just need to try it and will love it.

Same for Windows Phone, just like it was the same for Xbox and IPhone back in 2007.