Windows Phone 8 outselling the iPhone

According to a new report from the research firm IDC - as shared by Microsoft's Frank Shaw in a recent blog post - Windows Phone has topped BlackBerry in 26 markets and the iPhone in seven.

Shaw didn't divulge those seven mysterious markets in his blog post, but when The New York Times contacted IDC, an analyst named Kevin Restivo shared their identity, Huffington Post reported.

Those countries, according to him, are Argentina, India, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Ukraine.

A market IDC identifies as "the rest of Central and Eastern Europe," which includes Croatia!

Still, though, topping the iPhone anywhere represents a small victory for Windows Phone, Microsoft's late-to-market mobile operating system which really only debuted in its current form about three years ago. Since then, the story behind Windows Phone has been that it has struggled to gain market share from industry leaders iOS and Android, despite huge advertising spending campaigns; enthusiastic reviews from tech critics and journalists and a partnership with what was the world's largest mobile phone maker, Nokia.

And yet even with all that firepower, Windows Phone has languished in the single percentage points for market share, both worldwide and in the United States, failing to catch on with a broader populace in any meaningful way.