Windows Phone 7 enjoys 24% market share growth

When Windows Phone 8 was announced last month, many people felt that the demise of Windows Phone 7 would be inevitable courtesy of the Osbourne effect. For those unfamiliar with this concept, it’s used to describe the scenario when a previous product’s sales are negatively effected due to the announcement of the next product in the line.

However, it would seem that most people are either unaware that buying a Windows Phone 7 handset right now would mean that they won’t be able to upgrade to WP8, and will quickly fall behind the times. Either that, or the general public simply aren’t as fussed as industry writers that this will be the case.

The latest stats extrapolated from StatCounter show WP7′s market share to have grown by 24% of its amount a year ago, meaning that the OS usage in the EU currently stands at 1.68%, with the US showing similar results.

This is the biggest jump in WP take-up since the Nokia Lumia 800 launched in April 2012, and has been attributed by WMPower User to word of mouth, and also the popularity in the US of the 4G Lumia 900.

Surprising stats, especially seeing as the release of the highly-anticipated Windows Phone 8 is nearly upon us.