BlackBerry faces yet another blow, this time on its home turf. In comScore’s annual 2015 Canada Digital Future report, it was noted that the market share of the company is dropping, with more users ditching BlackBerry for Apple or Samsung smartphones.
BlackBerry losing on home turf
The report notes that Canadians are going for mobile devices, leaving desktops to browse the web and view online videos, which suggests the use of smartphones and tablets is increasing. Smartphones have increased significantly to over 81% usage in comparison to feature phones, which are used by just 18.8% of the population, says a report from Techienews.
Apple is on the top spot in the smartphone category with a 38.3% market share, followed by Samsung with a 32.4% share. Blackberry holds the third spot in Canada with an 8.9% share, followed by Google at 5.3%. Samsung holds the highest rank in the feature phone segment with a 36.8% share, followed by LG at 25% share. On the operating system front, Android holds the top spot with a 50.5% share followed by iOS at 38.3%.
Serving many purposes
More users are accessing social media through smartphones, with daily access rising 19% in December 2014 compared to December 2013. As per the report, 53% users use social media sites through smartphones, 48% play games on smartphones while 52% of users listen to the radio using a smartphone.
Additionally, there has been a rise in tablet usage, with around 32% of users prefer playing games on a bigger screen with better resolution. Also around 80% of users use instant messaging and gaming on a mobile platform, and 69% access social media sites through mobile devices (smartphones or tablets).
The report further read that banking and retail apps are seeing increased usage as Canadians are finding the apps very useful because of their simplicity and ease of use. Additionally, Canadians are also using mobile devices to watch TV more frequently. According to the comScore report, there is an increase of 32.2% in subscribers who watch TV on their phones, and 35% of Canadian smartphone subscribers who own a tablet use it for watching TV.