BlackBerry 10 Web usage has grown steadily since the operating system’s North American debut in March, 2013. However, users of the new devices still account for less than 25% of all BlackBerry-based Web traffic within the continent, with BlackBerry Web traffic share declining over the past several months.
BlackBerry 10 Web usage has grown steadily since the operating system’s North American debut in March, 2013. However, users of the new devices still account for less than 25% of all BlackBerry-based Web traffic within the continent, with BlackBerry Web traffic share declining over the past several months. One particular point of concern for analysts following BlackBerry’s first quarter earnings report on June 28, 2013 was the company not touting notable milestones for its new BlackBerry 10 devices getting into the hands of consumers. To quantify adoption of these devices in terms of Web traffic generated in North America, Chitika Insights analyzed 10 weeks of online ad impressions generated by BlackBerry devices. Web traffic by users of Blackberry’s new flagship models, the Z10 and Q10, was then graphed as a percentage of all North American BlackBerry Web usage. The sample itself consisted of millions of online ad impressions recorded on our network from April 12 through June 17, 2013.
The above weekly analysis shows an increasing trend for BlackBerry 10 in terms of its share of North American BlackBerry Web traffic. During the final week of the study, the average Web usage from continental Z10 and Q10 users was 15.5% of overall traffic from all BlackBerry devices. This represents a substantial increase from our previous study on the Blackberry Z10, which found Z10 traffic totaling 5.3% of overall BlackBerry traffic 20 days following its U.S. debut. The Q10, BlackBerry’s subsequent BlackBerry 10 offering, debuted in the U.S. on June 5, 2013 as noted in the above graph.
The slight hiccup in the trend between the weeks of May 10 and May 17, 2013 was due to a 43% increase in traffic from non-Blackberry 10 devices, including the BlackBerry Playbook, during that time span. Further analysis unveiled that this traffic was highly localized in the state of Florida, likely due to the large gathering of BlackBerry customers in Orlando, Florida for the annual BlackBerry Live conference.
Despite the increase in traffic share from BlackBerry 10 devices, the overall traffic share from BlackBerry users has declined. Over the length of this study, BlackBerry-based ad impressions accounted for an average of 0.7% of total mobile Web traffic on the Chitika network. Six months back in December 2012, Blackberry contributed to about 1.39% of total mobile traffic. With these trends in mind, BlackBerry will have to maneuver quickly and intelligently if the company is to remain competitive in the handset marketplace.
