In September 2012, Research in Motion (now BlackBerry) CEO Thorsten Heins famously told reporters at the company's BlackBerry Jam developer event that BlackBerry 10 has a "clear shot at being the Number three platform in the market." That kind of low expectation from BlackBerry's leader is not good enough for Nokia CEO Stephen Elop.

In a video interview with Bloomberg this week during the Mobile World Congress trade show, reporter Caroline Hyde asked Elop if Windows Phone had a chance at being the second biggest operating system. Elop responded with the rather bold quote, "It can be the biggest operating system in the world."

However, Elop did add a little bit of a qualifier with that statement, saying, "We have a lot of work to do, jointly with Microsoft, to make that happen." When Hyde asked for a specific target date on when Windows Phone might become the biggest OS, Elop said they have their own internal targets but declined to give any more forward looking statements.

There is evidence that Windows Phone 8 gained market share on iOS and Android, and Microsoft itself said this week that downloads of Windows Phone apps have increased greatly over the past few months. There's no question, however, that Windows Phone has a long way to go before it approaches the share that Android and iOS currently enjoy.

Source: Bloomberg