In Japan, the top two smartphone operating systems are Apple and Google, while Microsoft's OS is struggling in the country. 

According to new figures released by Kantar Worldpanel, Microsoft's Windows Phone placed fourth among the top four major smartphone operating systems in Japan. In fact, Windows Phone accounted for 0 percent of the market share during the three months ending in November 2013.

Kantar Worldpanel did not provide data for the three months ending in November 2012 for comparisons.

BlackBerry was not far ahead of Microsoft and narrowly edged out Windows Phone by 0.1 percentage point. BlackBerry finished the three months ending in November 2013 with only 0.1 percent of the market share.

Between Apple and Google's smartphone platforms, Apple's iOS operating system easily defeated Android.

The Google Android smartphone operating system finished November 2013 with 30 percent of the market share, which was easily enough for second place ahead of BlackBerry.

Apple's iOS finished ahead of Android by 39.1 percentage points. As a result, iOS, for the three months ending in November last year, garnered 69.1 percent of the Japanese smartphone operating system market share.

In contrast to U.S. figures, Android topped iOS by 7.2 percentage points. Android accounted for 50.3 percent of the U.S. smartphone operating system market share while iOS represented 43.1 percent.

Android's percentage of the market in the U.S. comes with an 8 percent increase from the same three-month period in 2012 while Apple's platform lost 9.9 percent.

Windows Phone performed better in the U.S. with 4.7 percent of the market share, or third place overall. 

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