While Windows 8 may be having a rough time of things, its smartphone counterpart is having no such problems. Windows Phone 8 is seemingly on a tear having gained enough market share to now be the number two mobile phone operating system in 14 countries including South Africa.

In the statement sent by Microsoft to Neowin.net the folks from Redmond weren’t content to just trumpet their success in terms of market position they also pointed out that Windows Phones outsold the iPhone in 24 markets in the third quarter of last year. While its certainly impressive to note that Windows Phone is gaining in popularity Q3 is usually seen as the slowest month of demand for the iPhone with many customers holding off for the release of a new iPhone which has taken place in September or October for the last three years.

The 14 markets where Windows Phone holds second place are predominantly from Eastern Europe, Asia and South America with the exception of Nokia’s home in Finland and South Africa. In South Africa the growth in Windows Phone has been largely spurred by the introduction of the Nokia Lumia 520 which at R2 000 has taken the budget phone segment by storm. In fact the Lumia 520 accounts for nearly 27% of all active Windows  Phone devices worldwide.

The countries where Windows Phone is coming in second are Chile, Czech Republic, Finland, Greece, Hungary, India, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Poland, South Africa, Thailand, Ukraine, Vietnam.

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