Some good news from BlackBerry Ltd. The company’s BlackBerry Messaging service continues to grow as the Canadian smart phone maker prepares to make BBM available to Android and iPhone devices this weekend.
BBM will be a free download in the Google Play store for Android on Saturday and in Apple Inc.’s App Store for iPhone on Sunday, according to BlackBerry.
“With more than a billion Android, iOS and BlackBerry smart phones in the market, and no dominant mobile messaging platform, this is absolutely the right time to bring BBM to Android and iPhone customers,” said Andrew Bocking, executive vice president for BBM is a statement yesterday.
With some 60 million subscribers, the BBM platform is one of BlackBerry’s most valuable assets. The BBM technology is considered essential in some nations where communications cost is high.
In recent years, however, BBM use in North America has dropped as consumers turned to iPhones and Android smart phones. Still, BBM sends and receives no less than 10 billion messages each day.
Apart from BBM text chat, users are able to share photos and schedules. The feature called Broadcast Message allows users to send out messages simultaneously to all their BBM contacts.
BBM’s Updates feature also enables user to post a personal message, profile photo and current status.
A security feature provides BBM users with a personal identification number (PIN) to maintain their privacy. Users do not have to give out their phone numbers or email address to a new or casual contact.