Microsoft’s Windows Phone is set to oust the BlackBerry OS from its third-place in the smartphone user base in the UK for the first time, a new report forecasts.
The beleaguered Canadian smartphone maker is seeing fading market share, firstly due to the advent of the iPhone and then by the Android’s growing popularity.
According to eMarketer’s latest prediction of mobile phone usage, BlackBerry users are set to drop by 35.2% by the end of 2014, hitting a new low of 2.4 million, with the decline going even steeper next year, leaving only 1.4 million BlackBerrys with the UK users.
eMarketer UK analyst Bill Fisher said: "The demise of BlackBerry has long been documented but these numbers highlight just how far it has fallen from grace.
"Android and iOS are clearly dominant, but while Microsoft is making significant effort to grow its presence — buying Nokia’s mobile phone unit and recently partnering with HTC to offer a Windows-based version of the flagship HTC One M8 — BlackBerry appears to have been treading water."
However, the report forecasts that Windows Phone is on pace to gain popularity with 3.5 million users by the late 2015.
Among all the smartphones in the UK, android-powered devices account for a complete majority, with iOS running on another three in 10 devices.
The report also anticipates that, overall, 36.4 million Brits will own and use a smartphone at least monthly this year, reporting 10% rise compared to 2013,mounting UK smartphone population to nearly 70% of the mobile population.
By 2018, about 70% of the overall UK population are expected to own a smartphone.
