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Can I answer my own question to start things off? :)
In Canada, where I live, I would say that XOOPS is "somewhere in the middle" when it comes to CMS awareness. Most people interested in having a CMS that I have talked to have heard of Mambo, Joomla and Wordpress ... but are somewhat less familiar with Xoops. On the other hand, there are several web development companies, module creators and XOOPS core team members who live here (spread all around, Canada is a big place!).
Freeform Solutions and
InboxInternational come to mind as companies that have created large corporate, government and non-profit sites with Xoops.
MusiquePlus, kind of like a Quebecquois MTV is a popular site that uses XOOPS as well.
So, I would say that in Canada, while there are some great things being done with Xoops, the software could be much more widely known.