While BlackBerry 10 had previously been seeing very aggressive upgrade rates, December saw only a modest uptick in those using the latest OS version. This is most likely due to some wireless carriers (like Verizon) continuing to block this update from their users.

With 76.9% of Stuff I Need users running OS 10.2, users of the checklist app have once again been a bit quicker to adopt the newer OS than the users of Pixelated have been. For Pixelated use of the newest OS was up to 61.2% which is less than a two percent increase from November.

For December statistics on the distribution of BlackBerry 10 devices, see yesterday’s post on BerryReview. The short version is that the BlackBerry Z10 currently accounts for 62.2% of the market.

This data was collected by BlackBerry World for downloads of the free strategy game Pixelated and the free checklist app Stuff I Need. Data shown on the chart is from the beginning of February 2013 through the end of December 2013.

November saw a majority of BlackBerry 10 users move to OS 10.2, the newest version of the operating system. However, due to a slow roll out by some carriers (such as Verizon) there still remains a sizable number of users on the older 10.1 version.

59.3% of users who downloaded Pixelated in November were running the newest OS, while this was true for 67.9% of users who downloaded the Stuff I Need app. Meanwhile there are still about five percent of BlackBerry 10 users on the original 10.0 release that the Z10 first launched with.

This data was collected by BlackBerry World for downloads of the free strategy game Pixelated and the free checklist app Stuff I Need. Data shown on the chart is from the beginning of February 2013 through the end of November 2013.

I have been pointing this out for awhile now, but the majority of BlackBerry 10 phones sold have no physical keyboard at all. Given BlackBerry’s history this is surprising to some, but has been rather consistent for at least half a year now. Devices with keyboards peaked at 28.76% in August, but since then most of the market’s growth has come from the touch-screen only Z30.

This data was collected by BlackBerry World for downloads of the free checklist app Stuff I Need. Data shown on the chart is from the beginning of June 2013 through the end of November 2013.

Despite the rapid adoption seen earlier this year of OS 10.1 the adoption of OS 10.2 has gotten off to a bit of a slower start. Statistics are shown from the entire month of October, so it does include a few days before the upgrade was officially released, but a decent percentage of users had already downloaded leaked versions of the OS the month before. Downloads of Pixelated showed 16.2% of users running OS 10.2 in October, while downloads of Stuff I Need showed 28.2% of users on 10.2 during the same month.

This data was collected by BlackBerry World for downloads of the free strategy game Pixelated and the free checklist app Stuff I Need. Data shown on the chart is from the beginning of February 2013 through the end of October 2013.

With the recently launched Z30, BlackBerry has produced its second BB10 phone without a physical keyboard. So far the new devices still composes only a modest 4.4% of the overall BB10 market, but it contributes to a months long pattern of users choosing a bigger screen over a physical keyboard.

The Z-series devices combine for 72.9% of the overall market, with more than two non-keyboard devices being used for each one that has a full qwerty layout. BlackBerry’s keyboard may still be iconic, but it is no longer an accurate representation of how the majority of BlackBerry users view their phones.

For those who are wondering why Roger’s decision to sell the BlackBerry Z30 last week is such a big deal, simply look at the chart below that shows the distribution of BlackBerry 10 users on the three largest carriers in Canada over the past seven months.

Every month Rogers has almost as many BlackBerry 10 users on their network as Bell and Telus do combined. Even with limited promotion it is entirely possible that Rogers will end up selling more Z30 BlackBerrys than any other wireless carrier.

September continued to see growth in the number of users running OS 10.1 (or higher) on their BlackBerrys. While Stuff I Need users continue to be quicker to adopt new versions than Pixelated users, both saw an increase of about five percentage points over the previous month.

This data was collected by BlackBerry World for downloads of the free strategy game Pixelated and the free checklist app Stuff I Need. Data shown on the chart is from the beginning of February 2013 through the end of September 2013.

The below chart shows the relative popularity of the four largest carriers in the United States by BlackBerry 10 users.

While there has been some month to month variation in general there is roughly an equal number of BlackBerry 10 users on AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. The biggest surprise here is the relative popularity of T-Mobile among the BlackBerry 10 user base as it lags significantly behind the other two in overall subscribers.

This data was collected by BlackBerry World for downloads of the free checklist app Stuff I Need. Data shown on the chart is from the beginning of April 2013 through the end of August 2013.