A third of mobile developers are planning to support Windows Phone in 2014, with support for Microsoft's platform doubling during the last 12 months.

That's the main takeaway from a developer survey published by Strategy Analytics, with the firm claiming the increase in support reflects significant growth for the OS.

Gaining ground

"Naturally Android and iOS were the top platforms, with 84 percent and 68 percent respectively of developers targeting those platforms," said Strategy Analytics' David MacQueen.

"Of the other platforms, HTML5 ranked third in terms of developer support with 33 percent developing for HTML5 this year, rising to 43 percent expecting to develop next year."

Despite the domination of the big two, MacQueen believes that Windows Phone is almost certainly about to cement itself as the "third ecosystem", as HTML5 is being primarily used as a development tool for other platforms.

"It seems that Windows Phone looks set to become the third ecosystem, as predicted by Elop in the infamous 'burning platform' memo," concluded MacQueen.

Of the newcomers on the scene, Strategy Analytics notes that Firefox's OS is gaining a fair portion of support - 10 percent on board in 2014 - while Tizen has also "piqued developer interest", with 5 percent claiming they plan to support Samsung's OS next year.

[source: Strategy Analytics]