Analytics company predict Windows Phone users will hit close to 70 million this year

Analytics company GlobalWebIndex, who gathers data from an international panel drawn from survey companies such as YouGov, Lightspeed Research and GMI, has reported on the results of their Q3 survey.

They predict Android will hit 708 million users this year, followed by the iPhone at 233 million and the iPad at 165.72 million users.

Of interest to our readers however is that Windows Phone users are estimated to rocket to 68.26 million users this year, passing Blackberry, who will drop to 62.56 million users. This would make Windows Phone users around 10% of Android users and 30% of iPhone users, and a far from insignificant number.

They also found Windows 7 will still have an estimated 734.12 million users this year, while Windows 8 users will reach 168.11 million. Meanwhile, there will be an estimated 47.78 million Apple Mac users this year, the research firm said, a number one would note significantly smaller than the small Windows Phone user base.

I cant personally vouch for these numbers, which seem on the high side, but there is no doubt that the absolute number of Windows phone users are growing well, and to the degree that it is becoming a market which developers ignore at their peril.

See a more detailed breakdown of the numbers after the break.

via IDG.no