For all of the pomp and grandeur surrounding Nokia’s 41MP Lumia 1020 or the full HD display of the Lumia 1520 neither of these devices are the driving force behind Windows Phone’s worldwide growth. That mantle has fallen to the Nokia Lumia 520 a R2 000 smartphone which now accounts for nearly 27% of worldwide Windows Phone usage according to stats from AdDuplex. Yesterday Nokia South Africa send out a press statement that quashed any hopes of the freshly announced Lumia 525 coming to South Africa, a smartphone which is essentially a Lumia 520 with double the RAM (1GB).

We (Nokia) have no intention to range the Nokia Lumia 525 in South Africa. The Nokia Lumia 520 is a key device for us locally and we are fully committed to driving its continued success along with our operator and retail partners well into 2014.

Steven Ambrose of Strategy Worx spoke to TechCentral yesterday regarding the decision not to introduce the Lumia 525 and speculated that it could be because the mobile operators have already ranged the devices they intend selling over the holiday season. “The mobile operators ranging is done for the year and probably also for the first quarter of 2014,” says Ambrose. “Because it’s a high volume, mass market thing, all their promos, spreadsheets, advertising, packaging and Christmas promotions have been taken care of in September.”

The decision to keep the Lumia 520 around for the foreseeable future could allow for Nokia to price it more aggressively to make further inroads into the market during the course of next year.