Windows Phone Grew 150% Last Quarter: Here's What That REALLY Means

Windows Phone had a "milestone" quarter, growing 150%, says a new report from IDC.

No doubt, we'll soon hear Microsoft crowing about that. Truth is, Microsoft sold 9.5 million Windows Phones worldwide last quarter, mostly from Nokia. That's out of a total of 261.1 million smartphones sold. So Microsoft has a tiny 3.6% market share.

Just for comparison, Apple sold 33.8 million iPhones during the same period and grew 26%.

But Microsoft sold a mere 3.7 million phones in the year-ago quarter. So things are moving in the right direction for the company.

The real winner last quarter was Android, which for the first time pushed over 80% market share.

Windows is duking it out with Android for low-cost smartphones, IDC researcher Ramon Llamas said in a press release: "Android and Windows Phone continued to make significant strides in the third quarter. Despite their differences in market share, they both have one important factor behind their success: price."