The Status of QR Codes: Statistics and Some Fun Facts

BeQRious has made an informal survey of 138 marketers over the past two months.

What follows below are what we have found and what we think about it.  Please do tell us what you think and if you are interested in participating in another informat survey some 6 months from now.

More than 5 out of 10 people have seen or know about a QR code.  Close to 3 out of 10 have scanned one.

We are optimistic that this will increase as more brands and companies take up QR codes for their marketing.  Not only that, more and more people are spreading the news about QR codes and what to do with them.  Indeed, we are seeing a lot of mainsteam news outlets talk about QR codes and how to scan them.  That combined with word of mouth advertising, would help educate as many people as to what QR codes are and how to scan them. 

Also smartphones are getting to be very popular in the country, with more and more people buying a smartphone to replace their old phones.  And because QR code readers are now available pre-loaded into smartphones, the scanning behavior would surely increase.

In fact, we’ve found out that there were 13 times as many people scanning QR codes in Decebmer 2010, compared to those in January 2010.  

Out of all these, 63% scanned a QR codes using an iPhone, while a quarter used an Android-powered phone.  The remaining 12% used a device powered by other operating systems.

We expect this to change in the next two years.  For one, our data comes largely from the United States, where the iPhone holds an unprecedented large market share.  Another reason is that, we have seen more and more phones and devices use the Android OS, which is backed by Google and free to use.  Because of these, BeQRious thinks that while iPhones will still do the majority of QR code scanning, more and  more Androids will soon do the same.

BeQRious has seen a lot of brands, retailers, companies, products and other institutions make use of QR codes for their marketing campaigns.  So what are you waiting for?

BeQRious also provides tons of information as to what QR codes are, and how to make it work for you.  Just follow the links here.

Some things you should know about QR codes:

• Lacoste Does It Right
• Bridging The Divide Between Offline and Online
• Vanity QR Codes: Are They Worth It?
• QR Codes in School Settings

Some recent QR code campaigns:

• Norwegian Bus Company Helps Passengers Find Bus Schedule And Kill Time
• Davidson’s Innovative QR Code Campaign For Florida’s Real Estate

How to use QR codes for your success:

• The Psychology of QR Codes series: Part 1 | Part 2 | Final Part
• Four Ways to Maximize Your QR Code Campaigns
• Real World Examples of QR Code Fails
• Make Yourself Famous With QR Codes
• Making Corporate Giveaways Work Harder
• Making QR Codes Campaigns Work: Creating an Optimized Mobile Site
• Interesting Ways To Make Use of QR Codes

How to choose a QR code Generator:

• The Qualities of a Great QR Code Generator