Microsoft Windows Phone commercial mocks Apple-Samsung wars to promote Nokia Lumia

Microsoft's Windows Phone 8 platform may have stumbled out of the gates, but that hasn't stopped the software giant from poking fun at smartphone industry-leading rivals Samsung and Apple in a new commercial touting Nokia's Lumia 920.

The commercial, set at a wedding, starts off tamely enough, with attendees snapping pictures of the nuptials on their iPhones and assorted Galaxy devices. One guest berates another for blocking the action, and the fight is on, with Apple and Samsung partisans flinging the stereotypical Android vs. Apple barbs back and forth before a Kung Fu brawl breaks out.

While its aim is to highlight Nokia's flagship handset, the Lumia 920, and the Windows Phone 8 platform, the ad draws attention to the near-duopoly in the smartphone sector. Apple and Samsung are essentially the only manufacturers whose mobile segments are generating profits, capturing 103 percent of handset profits when accounting for the losses their competitors, have taken.

Nokia is one of those competitors that's been losing money. Once comfortable atop the cell phone market, Nokia has since gone on to massive losses and nosediving market share as Apple's iPhone and other smartphones have come to dominate. The Finnish manufacturer lost $3 billion over the course of 2012 as it struggled to cut costs and reverse its slide.

The company's difficulty in clawing back market share is possibly compounded by its choice of operating system. Hemorrhaging users as iOS and Android rose, Nokia bet large on Microsoft's Windows Phone platform, sticking with it through Windows Phone 7 and on to the current Windows Phone 8, even delaying the release of its new Lumia handsets until a massive, Microsoft-guided launch event that showed off a line of Windows Phone 8 devices.

Nokia has seen positive signs of late, though. Its new line of Windows Phone 8-based Lumia handsets have received generally solid reviews, and sales have picked up, with the company moving 5.6 million Lumias in the past quarter, up from 4.4 million in the previous quarter. Two-thirds of those phones were running Windows Phone 8. Nokia is also targeting emerging markets with inexpensive Lumia handsets, while the manufacturer is also said to be preparing to release a model on the United States largest wireless carrier, Verizon.