When reading US media it is easy to get the impression that Windows Phone and Microsoft Mobile was a mere footnote in the smartphone market.

In Europe however things are very different, though this view is very rarely expressed or appreciated.

Yesterday Kantar delivered some smartphone market share numbers, not just by OS but also by OEM, which I think puts matters into perspective rather well.

According to their data, in the 3 months ending August 2015, Microsoft Mobile was the 3rd largest OEM in Europe, with sales well ahead of Sony and Huawei, more than double that of LG, 4 times that of HTC and 5 times that of Motorola.

Not only that, compared to Android OEMs Microsoft’s market share has been increasing, vs drops in that of Samsung, Sony, LG, HTC and Motorola. In fact Android overall fell 3.3% YoY while Windows Phone rose 1.6% to 11% of the market, meaning half of the market share Android lost went to Microsoft.

Now to be clear, no-one is saying Windows Phone is on the ascent, but with a respectable chunk of the smartphone market (only 5% less than that of the iPhone) in Europe it is certainly not in trouble either, and doing a lot better some of the other OEMs with better headlines.

With any luck the rounding out of the Windows mobile range with high end offerings will see further market share gains in the region, but I think its worth noting that in Europe (a region with nearly 750 million people) Windows Phone is not a single digit OS.