BlackBerry is all set to roll out its BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) on Android and iOS and they will be available from September 21 and 22 on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store respectively and recent reports indicate that the messenger has already garnered 2.5 million pre-registrations.
BlackBerry was planning the launch of a cross-platform BBM for quite a while now and this is the first time that the company will be offering them publicly. There are tons of other messaging apps that BBM will have to compete with right from launch day – WhatsApp, Viber, Line, among others and that poses a very important question as to how many users will be actually downloading and using it. Samsung teased BBM for Galaxy smartphones back in August, just after it confirmed existence of BBM for Android earlier the same month.
Andrew Bocking, who oversees BBM for BlackBerry, has revealed in an interview with CNET that the messenger has already managed 2.5 million pre-registrations. BlackBerry claims that there are already 60 million active users of BBM and it is only available on BlackBerry smartphones for now. The messaging app is probably one of the strongest offering from BlackBerry and the company indicated previously that it may spin-off BBM as a separate company.
At launch, BBM for Android and iOS will not have an elaborated set of features, but will consist of core features including instant messaging and group chats. BlackBerry has revealed that it will be adding more and more new features over time as time passes by including voice and video chat, and BBM Channels among others. The app reportedly hit beta at the start of August.
