According to BlackBerry, after the public launch of the exclusive Blackberry Messenger BBM™ on the Android and iOS platform, with more than 10 million downloads in the first 24 hours, BBM has now ended its first week with more than 80 million monthly active users, including over 20 million new users on Android and iPhone devices.
“It is great to see so many people downloading BBM, but the true measurement for us is engagement – the connections being made and the conversations in which our BBM community engages. The power of BBM has always been the active, real conversations and interaction that our customers enjoy. From here on out, we will focus on active users of BBM and will no longer focus on simple download numbers, ” said Andrew Bocking, Executive Vice President of BBM at BlackBerry.
Unfamiliar with BBM? BBM functions the same way you would expect a normal messenger would, you can connect and chat with other BBM users, share files such as photos, and voice notes, as well as updating your statuses on the BBM platform. BBM Groups also allows photo, calendar, chat and file sharing for up to 30 people in a user-generated community.
Every BBM user has a unique PIN that helps maintains their privacy, so users never have to give out their phone number or email address to a new or casual contact. BlackBerry ID connects with a person’s PIN, BBM contact list and services to make device switching quick and easy.
Though 80 million is an impressive figure for BBM, the messaging app competes with Apple’s iMessage, which has more than 140 million users. Other services, including Whatsapp with over 250 million monthly active users and Facebook Messenger boast equally large and growing users bases.
In Asia too, several chat app such as LINE with 200 million registered users as well as WeChat which has more than 300 million registered users are also posing serious competition to the BBM platform which has finally decided to extend its exclusive messaging app to global users.
We previously also reported that BlackBerry has announced its exit from the consumer market, after announcing their preliminary fiscal 2014 results. Losses were reported to have amounted up to $950 million, a large part due to the stagnant pile of Z10 inventory as a consequence from the increasingly competitive smartphone market, and another portion due to their previous restructuring costs.
BlackBerry had later signed a Letter of Intent to be bought over by an association led by Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited Monday. This agreement will come with a transaction of USD 9 in cash per share to all shareholders which will amount to an approximate total of USD 4.7 billion.
With BlackBerry to be sold to another company, would product support still be available?
There are some skepticism from the Twittersphere too that while the number of new users on BBM are impressive, it does not mean much.
@TheNextWeb @EPro what about their bouncing rate? We'll see soon enough the truth behind all this story
— Thomas Plaindoux (@Xspirits) October 29, 2013
Good opening numbers, but if #BlackBerry BBM can't find my contacts automatically, then downloads vs. use may be low. http://t.co/uNgfPaWxzr
— Jason Paris (@JasonParis) October 30, 2013
@mashable How many of those users are happy? #reviews #BBM
— Chanade (@chanademj) October 30, 2013
@chanademj @mashable not many are happy. I wasn't satisfied, to be honest. It may be over-hyped and too many robot reviews on Google Play.
— William (@_WreX) October 30, 2013
I'm judging 20m people “@TheNextWeb: BlackBerry says BBM for Android and iOS gained 20m users in the last week http://t.co/rM7YP0l7a4 "
— John Walker (@JMwalker1982) October 29, 2013
Have you tried BBM? What do you think about it?