China has become the largest Windows Phone device market, said Stephen Elop, chief executive officer of Nokia Corp, at a New York news briefing where Nokia launched its latest Lumia smartphones running on Windows 8 software.

Officials at Nokia China also confirmed to China Daily on Sept 6 that China is the biggest single-country market for Windows Phone devices manufactured by Nokia.

After Samsung presented the world’s first Windows 8 smartphone in Germany at the end of August, Nokia unveiled two Windows 8 models Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 on Wednesday, however without disclosing the prices and launch date of the handsets.

Elop, who took helm at Nokia in September 2010, has driven the company to be 100 percent dedicated to Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system and gradually abandon its Symbian platform. According to research firm Localytics, Nokia is the world’s biggest Windows Phone vendor, with a worldwide market share of 59 percent in July.

However, according to industry research firm Gartner, less than 3 percent of smartphones sold in the second quarter ran on the Windows Phone operating system. The majority of smartphones sold worldwide were still running on Google Inc’s Android operating system and Apple Inc’s iOS.

China has already edged out the United States to become the world’s biggest smartphone market. Overall, 160 million smartphones are expected to be sold in the Chinese market by the end of this year, up 141 percent from 67 million in 2011, an IHS report said.