Windows Phone doubles European users in a year

Windows Phone might be having a tough time of it overall but things are looking up in Europe. Microsoft's smartphone OS now has a 9.2% share in the top five European markets - that's up from 5.1% this time last year.

That's according to the latest findings by Kantar Worldpanel, which looked at the performance of various smartphones across Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Spain, along with a handful of countries in other continents.

The numbers don't lie

While Windows Phone is still on single digit figures overall, it now has 12% of the market share in Great Britain, up from just 4.5% this time last year and 10.8% in France, up from 5.6%.

It's also neck and neck with iOS in Germany, where Windows Phone and iOS have 8.8% and 9.5% of the market share respectively.

Windows Phone is still struggling, but its market share is increasing and in Europe it's happening at a faster rate than either iOS or Android. That's likely down in large part to strong sales of the Nokia Lumia 520. If Windows Phone can pull other successful smartphones out of the bag then it may yet become a major player.

The bad news in this data is reserved for BlackBerry, which has seen a drop in market share across every region that Kantar Worldpanel provided data for, bringing its overall market share in the top five European regions down from 5.8% to 2.4%.

• In the market for a Windows Phone? We've got you covered.