The Head of Public Relations at Microsoft, Frank Shaw, published a blog which tallied the progress of Microsoft. The data Shaw gathered included Windows Phone, among others.

Shaw's tally caught the interest of John Gruber at Daring Fireball. Gruber's interest was caught by seven countries where the Windows Phone outshipped the iPhone.

Shaw's data came from IDC. Kevin Restivo, an analyst of the research firm, stated that the Microsoft has more shipments of its Windows Phone in Ukraine, South Africa, Russia, Poland, India, Argentina, and a "seventh country." The seventh country was actually composed of smaller countries. These smaller countries, including Croatia, were lumped together as the "rest of central and eastern Europe."

However, South Africa, Ukraine, and the rest of central and eastern Europe were small markets. Each of these markets had shipments of fewer than 100,000 units during the fourth quarter.

Restivo also noted a common factor among the seven countries where the Windows Phone beat the iPhone. He noticed that these countries were traditional strongholds of Nokia. Nokia was the flagship handset partner of Microsoft.