As part of its latest quarterly financial report, Microsoft disclosed that it had sold a record number - over 10.5 million - of its Lumia handsets in Q4 2014, along with the news that its Surface tablets had generated over a billion dollars of sales in a single quarter for the first time.

Annoyingly, Microsoft doesn't disclose exact sales figures for its Surface range. But market analysis and research firm Canalys has published its latest industry report giving an overview of the worldwide tablet market, and it reveals some useful insights into the success of the Surface line compared with other devices.

Microsoft is said to have shipped "just over two million" Surface tablets last quarter - more than twice the number of tablets sold by HP, but far behind Lenovo's 3.7 million shipments, and Amazon's 4 million.

Growth in the global tablet market this year is predicted to come from devices "with screen sizes larger than 8-inches as vendors look to improve margins and micro-brand players exit the market. Some of this change will be driven by growth of the Windows platform."

Windows tablets grabbed just over 9% of the worldwide market last quarter, with shipments of over six million units. Surface accounted for a third of all Windows tablet shipments, thanks to increased sales of the high-end Surface Pro 3.

Indeed, Microsoft will now be focusing exclusively on the Surface Pro 3 in the tablet space, as the company confirmed last week that it has ended production of its cheaper Windows RT-based Surface 2 tablet.

With sales of its Surface Pro 3 increasing, shipments of Windows tablets from its hardware partners growing, and a forecast of further growth for the year ahead, Microsoft's strategy is beginning to come together. But with global tablet market share for Windows still in single figures, Microsoft clearly still has much work to do.

More: Canalys