More than 32 per cent of developers indicated they will support Windows Phone next year, double the 16 per cent who created apps for the Microsoft platform in 2013, according to the Strategy Analytics Developer Survey.

The research firm noted that “naturally” Android and iOS were the top platforms, with 84 per cent and 68 per cent of developers targeting these platforms, respectively.

“That’s primarily down to the huge installed base; we asked developers why they were supporting a particular platform and the top answer for both of these platforms was the user base,” said David MacQueen, executive director, apps and media research at Strategy Analytics.

HTML5 ranked third in terms of developer support, with 33 per cent developing for HTML5 this year, and 43 per cent of developers are expecting to use it next year.

“However, one-third of those developers use HTML5 as a tool to develop for other platforms. Therefore, it seems that Windows Phone looks set to become the third ecosystem, as predicted by Elop in the infamous ‘burning platform’ memo,” MacQueen continued.

Strategy Analytics also said that Firefox OS “seems to be gathering quite a bit of developer support”, showing the biggest rise, with more than triple the number of developers expecting to support the platform next year.

“Only 3 percent of developers created something for the platform this year, but following successful launches in Latin America, Spain and a handful of other European markets, 10 percent of developers expect to be creating apps for those handsets in the coming year,” said Adam Thorwart, research associate.

And despite the lack of available devices, Tizen also seems to have “piqued developer interest”: 2 per cent of developers targeted the platform this year, which is expected to grow to 5 per cent in 2013.