According to the latest figures from Kantar WorldPanel ComTech for the 12 weeks leading up to Christmas Day show Microsoft Windows Phone handsets representing 5.4 per cent of sales in the five leading E.U. economies of Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. That is more than double the 2.6 per cent for the same period in 2011.

RIM's BlackBerry, meanwhile, dropped from 10.3 per cent to 4 per cent over the same period, leaving it 1.4 per cent behind Microsoft’s operating system.