Blackberry ...

By Hubert Nguyen

StatCounter has published a report which shows Blackberry taking over Apple's share in mobile web usage. It also shows Android getting ever bigger. The data was compiled from 15 Billion monthly page views from 3 million sites. "These figures suggest that developers should not be developing solely for the iPhone to the exclusion of BlackBerry and Android," says Aodhan Cullen, StatCounter 's CEO. Really?

Although this seems to be great news for RIM and the BlackBerry brand, it seems counter-intuitive when we look at the market reality: iOS products seems to do well enough that it seems "bizarre" that its web-traffic share keeps going down in StatCounter's reports (note that AdMob had very different numbers recently with RIM at 8%, Appleinsider points out). Although we don't want to take credit from RIM for apparently maintaining a strong position, we think that the apparent loss of share in web-browsing might be partly due to the "app" usage versus web usage.

Many web sites now have iOS apps, making the use of the web browser less relevant and what seems like "good news" for RIM, might mean that Blackberry users (like myself) have to take it to the web, because our favorite service simply doesn't exist as an app (that's the ugly part). Still, even if we take app usage into account, this is strange (or fishy?) – but these are StatsCounter numbers. Of course, we would love developers to support all platforms, but in the end, they simply go towards the one that is most lucrative. The market will decide.