It’s ALIVE! (BlackBerry) That is.. and other news you should know.
Hey now, just because the company went bankrupt and already fired most of their employees doesn’t mean that they’re still not doing great things! For instance, let’s take for instance a look at the app ecosystem with their latest BlackBerry Messenger app. The app has an astonishing 10 million downloads in its first 24-hours.
Wow.
The app (which is available on both iOS and Android) is said to have hit the top free app charts in more than 75 countries including: the US, UK, and Canada.
Certainly a lot better launch than that of the new BlackBerry 10 itself ;).
BlackBerry has yet to disclose which OS has what % of downloads. HOWEVER, a little digging will show that Google Play shows the apps install base being between 1 and 5 million which leads us to assume that there are in-fact more downloads on iOS.
While the rapid number of downloads in a short period of time may seem like BlackBerry has it all-together, this is actually their second attempt with the app after a failed first attempt. BlackBerry has introduced a queuing system in order to avoid swamping the servers. While some users have gained access, there are reports of others still waiting to gain entry.
Moving on..
Playhaven is now working with more than 10,000 developers and 20,000 games reaching more than 800 million users (44% up since last quarter). In other words, that’s a growth of 176 million active players every-month (or 150%) since the same time last year.
CEO Any Yang had this to say on the matter,
“PlayHaven is building a comprehensive set of intelligent tools that developers can use to manage a successful business,”
“We do this by getting in the trenches with developers every day – learning what happens in their games, providing helpful insights, and crafting creative solutions that help them solve their problems.”
Finally..
App Annie has announced some new features for the App Analytics platform. These Features include:
Store Stats for everyone.
Hourly Rankings – They’ve turned this feature on for every user enabling them to track the hourly rankings of the iPhone, iPad and Mac app stores.
Kids Category for iOS – Apple recently announced at WWDC they would be adding a new “Kids” section – and they did. App Annie now tracks the top 300 kids apps broken down by age group.
New Countries for Google Play – News for Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and UAE! App Annie now allows you to track these countries on Store Stats for Google Play. You get top 500 Free, Paid, Grossing, Top New and Top Paid apps.
Better IAP view
In-App Purchase by type – Users can now break down their in-app purchases by type. The current supported types are Purchase, Paid Subscription, Auto-Renew Subscription and Free Subscription.
Improved On-the-go Analytics
Pin Code – Heading to the settings menu and enabling pin code protection will now keep prying eyes and curious fingertips out of your private app data.
Multi-Currency – Now all users can see revenues in the currency of their choice.
Offline Support – Data is now saved to your phone.
Background Loading – App Annie now grabs the data you usually need, before you’ve even asked for it (predictive loading).
Kevin is an Online and Mobile Marketing Strategist who has worked with companies of all sizes over the last 6 years. You can follow Kevin on any of the social platforms below.
