I've made charts from the previous year spreadsheet data, and some of them are rather interesting.
Here's the relationship between the date when the application was received by the CIO and time it took for the CIO to encash the fee (which is a first real visible activity from the CIO):
As you see, the time to encash the fee raises quickly with number of applications, especially in the first few days. Applicants whose applications were received on the first two days, May 4 - May 5 2013, got their fee encashed in 40-50 days. Then the time rose to about 55-80 days for 1st month applicants. On the peak the time was about 90 days, which is 3 times longer than in the fastest cases.
This year there were some applicants who prepared beforehand, so it's probably possible the processing time will rise even faster than last year, unless CIC has optimized the process or has increased number of their officers working on the applications.