Windows Phone passes BlackBerry

Windows Phone devices have surpassed Blackberry for third place in smartphone shipments, U.S. market research firm IDC reported. During the first quarter of 2013, devices running the Windows Phone operating system made up 3.2 percent of all smartphones shipped, while BlackBerry devices accounted for 2.9 percent of the market, IDC's quarterly report on the smartphone market said. The numbers are almost a perfect reversal of those of the previous quarter, when Microsoft's OS accounted for 2.6 percent of all shipments and BlackBerry 3.2 percent, CNNMoney reported Friday. However, both companies are in a battle to be a distant third behind Google's Android and Apple's iOS, which together have a hold on 92.3 percent of the market. Android leads with around 75 percent of all smartphones shipped in the first quarter, while Apple saw market share for iOS dip to 17.3 percent in the quarter, IDC said.