Where in the World Are Windows Phones Outselling iPhones? ⇥ bits.blogs.nytimes.com

Frank X. Shaw, Corporate Vice President of Corporate Communications at Microsoft (no, really — that’s his title, with both instances of “corporate”):

Windows Phone has reached 10 percent market share in a number of countries, and according to IDC’s latest report, has shipped more than Blackberry in 26 markets and more than iPhone in seven.

Woah. Windows Phones are outselling iPhones in seven markets? That’s pretty significant, if those markets include, say, the United Kingdom, or the United States. But that doesn’t seem likely. Which seven markets, then, are Windows Phones doing better in?

Nick Wingfield, New York Times:

According to Kevin Restivo, an analyst at IDC, the countries where Windows Phone shipments exceeded those of iPhone during the fourth quarter were: Argentina, India, Poland, Russia, South Africa and Ukraine. A seventh “country” where Windows Phone shipments beat iPhone is actually a group of smaller countries, including Croatia, that IDC lumps together in a category called “rest of central and eastern Europe.”

India, Russia, and eastern Europe are all big areas with a fairly large combined population, but Apple can’t compete with ultra-cheap phones. And nor, I am sure, do they want to.