Nokia Corp. was the dominant supplier of smartphones based on Symbian operating system, as although the platform was open-source it was largely controlled by Nokia, and now the company became the dominant supplier of smartphones powered by Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Phone OS. While the achievement seems to be important, the problem for once the world’s largest smartphone maker is that the overall shipments of WP-based devices are negligible.

Usage data from AdDuplex, an ad network for Windows Phone, indicates that Nokia controls around 78% of the smartphone platform’s OEM market, reports the Next Web web-site. AdDuplex bases its Windows Phone hardware market share data off of a collection of 294 applications in its network, tracked over the past few weeks, and therefore the data may not be completely accurate. Still, it should represent the market trend and that representation is most likely correct.

Nokia officially said that it sold four million Lumia smartphones in the fourth quarter of last year. Meanwhile, according to Canalys market tracking agency there were 5.1 million handsets with Windows Phone operating system sold in Q4 2012. In case the information from Nokia and Canalys is correct, then the former did have 78% share of all Windows Phone shipments late last year.

While Nokia deserves a credit for quickly gaining market share on a new ground, thanks to the fact that it is among a few vendors who actually manage to ship Microsoft Windows Phone-based smartphones volumes, it should be noted that the company has not managed to stop the erosion of its overall smartphone market share. Microsoft’s mobile platform is still not popular among the end-users and it remains to be seen whether Nokia will succeed in growing sales of its Lumia family outside of Microsoft’s traditional mobile customers.

Microsoft and Nokia did not comment on the news-story.

Tags: Nokia, Microsoft, Windows Phone, Windows Phone 8, Lumia, Samsung, HTC