Windows Phone outsells Symbian in UK

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While UK had been much more receptive of Symbian than US, UK is ready to make a shift to Windows Phone which Microsoft’s CEO, Stephen Elop says has the potential to be the third eco-system. (Here’s our take on why it won’t)

According to market researcher  Kantar Worldpanel, Nokia’s new Smartphone of choice, Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7, outsold its older smartphone system in the U.K. this year. With about 2.5 percent of U.K. phone buyers chose a Windows Phone compared with 2.4 percent who preferred to buy Symbian based handsets.

“The fact that Windows Phone sales have overtaken Symbian based on one handset is encouraging,” said Dominic Sunnebo, a London-based Kantar analyst. “However, Nokia will need to expand the range quickly in order to keep up with the slew of next generation competitor products being launched in quarter two.”

Nokia’s Lumia marketing strategy seems to work as Nokia Lumia 800 accounted for 87 percent of Windows Phone in the UK. While Windows Phone clearly seems to be the choice of device for UK based consumers, Symbian’s market share has been on decline from 12.4 percent share to single digit this year earlier.

This is good news for Nokia as it’s making its transition from Symbian to Windows Phone but to continue the growth, it might have to launch a much larger portfolio.