Windows Phone beats Blackberry

With the battle for the first and second spot in the U.S Smartphone market always between Apple and Samsung, the fight for the third spot is the real contest and something watched keenly.

The fight between Blackberry and Microsoft on who takes the spot in the mobile operating system market behind Google Android and Apple iOS is one of the most fascinating in the year 2013.

In this endeavour, Microsoft Windows Phone seems to have gotten off to a good start as it has overtaken the market share of Blackberry OS in the United States market during Q4 of 2012.

According to Market Analytics, “Microsoft Windows Phone overtook BlackBerry OS to become the third largest Smartphone platform in the influential United States market during Q4 2012.

It was the first time Microsoft has surpassed BlackBerry since 2006.

Comparing BB10 with Windows Phone

To compare Windows Phone with Blackberry is unfair since Microsoft released Windows 8 mobile operating system last quarter while Blackberry just released Blackberry 10 last month.

In addition, there are still some devices that run on the earlier Windows 7 mobile operating system which has partly helped Windows Phone to post good numbers.

On the other hand, Blackberry has been steadily losing market share and posting loses consistently for quite some time now.

 Microsoft has been aggressively pushing Windows 8 and has been helped by some world class hardware from HTC and Nokia.

The aggressively priced HTC 8X series and Lumia 920 have been selling really well since their launch in November.

Nokia and HTC along with Samsung are expected to unveil more Windows 8 based smartphones at the Mobile World Congress to be held later this month.

This will happen before the latest models of BB10 are expected to be made available in the United States.

Wait for BB10 just got longer

The real test on who takes the third spot will happen this quarter when both Windows Phone and Blackberry will have their latest devices on the market.

If the Blackberry Z10 sales are encouraging as per the early reports, the third spot could belong to Blackberry.

With all the four major carriers in the United States offering BB10 based phones and with one of them being touch-based, the sales are bound to be encouraging.

Q10 and Z10 models are not expected to arrive before April end in the United States as it is now under the time consuming, certification process of the U.S carriers.

Matching Windows 8 hardware

Despite the best efforts, Blackberry has not been able to match up Windows Phone hardware.

Blackberry has made a good start with BB10 to get into the highly competitive mobile operating system market.

The new touch-based Z10 with high resolution screen and improved user interface will definitely help BB gain new users over Microsoft which has long dominated the usability space.

Though the new BB10 based devices look good, it might not really help BB beat Windows.