After the release of its smartphones sales data for Q2 2013 earlier this month IDC has been sharing country specific data with a number of organisations. The country specific data points to strong sales of Lumia devices in certain markets, but also underlines Nokia's smartphone recovering is patchy, with the greatest returns in the markets where Nokia has made substantial investments in marketing and sales training.

The Wall Street Journal reports that IDC figures indicate that in Italy, Nokia enjoyed a year on year sales increase of 17%, remaining the number two vendor of smartphones. In the UK the sales figures were also encouraging, with Nokia more than doubling its smartphones volume sales to 396,000 units, although it remains outside the top five vendors. In total Nokia shipped 1.8 million smartphones in Western Europe.

In its home market of Finland, Taloussanomat reports that Nokia sold 104,000 Lumia device, behind Samsung's 164,000 Android devices, but took the overall mobile phone market crown thanks to it superior performance in the feature phone segment.

A Microsoft press release, also based on IDC data, touts Windows Phone progress in the Latin American market, where the platform has moved up yto second place, from fourth place a year ago, in terms of unit shipments. The platform ranks second, behind Android, in Mexico, Columbia, and Peru, and is in third place in Argentina, Chile, and Brazil.

From the Microsoft press release on Windows Phone in Latin America:

The report shows that Windows Phone has been ranked second in Mexico for the second consecutive quarter, and in the second quarter of 2013, Windows Phone was also ranked second in both Colombia and Peru. It is important to highlight the fact that Colombia is one of the countries with the highest user preference ratings, with 25.6 percent of the market share. In other countries, such as Argentina, Chile and Brazil, Microsoft’s mobile platform has also grown in popularity, ranking third in the second quarter of 2013.

Windows Phone success in Mexico has been boosted by sales of the Lumia 505, a Windows Phone 7.8 powered device, which was created exclusively for operator Telcel (i.e. similar to the Lumia 521 in the US).

More generally the increase in Lumia sales is credited to the broadening range of devices that are now available, from the Nokia Lumia 520 at the low end, to the Lumia 720 in the mid tier, and the Lumia 925 at the high end.

As a reminder here's a chart of IDC's numbers for global smartphone shipments over the last two and half years: