Redmond, Washington-based software giant Microsoft hopes to gain a fifth of the New Zealand’s smartphone market within the next three years.

At an event organized to demonstrate the next update for Windows Phone 7 smartphone OS, codenamed Mango, Microsoft executive Mark Bishop said that a study hinted that New Zealanders would have as many as 690,000 smartphones by 2013, and the software firm believed that grabbing 20 per cent of the market would be feasible.

Mark Bishop, Windows Phone business manager at Microsoft New Zealand said, “Competitors spend a lot of time on (hardware) features for their phones - dual-core, wider screens - and there is value in doing that but you also need to improve the web experience.”

Microsoft also announced its new handset partners, including Acer and Fujitsu, who are expected to help the software firm to snatch a considerable of the smartphone market from its biggest rivals, viz. Google and Apple.

Windows Phone 7 OS has been available in New Zealand for the last seven months, but it has yet to allure consumers away from rival platforms.

Mango, which will bring 500 new features to the OS and faster web browsing using Microsoft’s IE9, focuses on communications, apps and the internet experience.

All existing Windows Phone 7 users will receive Mango as a free update sometime around Christmas.