BlackBerry 10, the latest operating system from BlackBerry, formerly known as Research in Motion, is the company’s most ambitious attempt to match the functionality of Apple- and Google-powered smartphones after years of receding market share. The operating system made its Canadian debut on February 5th, 2013 in the form of the full-touch BlackBerry Z10 – one of two BlackBerry 10 smartphones unveiled as part of the operating system’s launch event on January 30th. The Z10 then made its U.S. debut on the AT&T network March 22nd, 2013, before subsequent roll outs to Verizon and T-Mobile in the following weeks. To get a view into the operating system’s initial progress, Chitika Insights conducted a study examining the BlackBerry Z10’s impact on North American BlackBerry Web usage in the days since its release.
BlackBerry 10, the latest operating system from BlackBerry, formerly known as Research in Motion, is the company’s most ambitious attempt to match the functionality of Apple- and Google-powered smartphones after years of receding market share. The operating system made its Canadian debut on February 5th, 2013 in the form of the full-touch BlackBerry Z10 – one of two BlackBerry 10 smartphones unveiled as part of the operating system’s launch event on January 30th. The Z10 then made its U.S. debut on the AT&T network March 22nd, 2013, before subsequent roll outs to Verizon and T-Mobile in the following weeks.
To get a view into the operating system’s initial progress, Chitika Insights conducted a study examining the BlackBerry Z10’s impact on North American BlackBerry Web usage in the days since its release. For context, we also included a graph showcasing the iPhone 5’s impact on North American iPhone Web traffic in the days following its debut on September 21st, 2012.
To quantify this study, Chitika Insights examined a sample of tens of millions of U.S. and Canadian mobile ad impressions from the Chitika Ad Network observed in the 65 days following the respective launches of the BlackBerry Z10 and Apple iPhone 5.
As seen in the graph above, BlackBerry 10’s share of BlackBerry traffic has grown to 5.3% as of April 11th, 2013. This represents an approximate doubling in usage share since the Z10’s U.S. release 20 days prior. The launch of the smartphone on Verizon (Day 51) also coincided with the Z10’s largest sustained jump in usage share. As a comparison, North American iPhone 5 users generated 5.5% of all North American iPhone traffic 15 days after its release. While the iPhone 5 launched across multiple carriers in both the U.S. and Canada on September 21st, 2012, it is also worth noting that the total volume of BlackBerry traffic is significantly smaller than that of the iPhone, meaning that many more new iPhones were needed to impact overall share figures.
BlackBerry 10’s relatively steady rate of growth in terms of the BlackBerry ecosystem is a likely indicator that the company’s new operating system and hardware are not being rapidly adopted by BlackBerry’s existing user base. However, the Verizon launch seems to have slightly accelerated its growth, and the keyboard centric Q10 model, due to be released later this year, may appeal to long-standing BlackBerry users who value the tactile feedback of a physical keyboard. Additionally, promotional efforts on the part of the carriers, which were seen as lackluster on launch day, but have improved recently, could help boost BlackBerry 10’s long-term prospects.
