CHINA TOPIX

03/29/2024 11:04:51 am

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BBM Nears 100 Million Active Monthly Users

BlackBerry Messenger

BlackBerry recently announced 91 million active monthly users on BBM and over 110 registered users. The messaging service, available on Android, iOS, Windows Phone and BlackBerry, has become one of the most popular service worldwide, competing with WeChat, LINE and WhatsApp for the top-spot.

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BBM was ported to Android and iOS late last year, after mediocre sales of the BlackBerry Q and Z. Thorsten Heins, CEO at the time, seen the move as a way to diversify their revenue and potentially make BBM its own company, similar to eBay and PayPal.

A few months after the official release, BlackBerry announced 20 million downloads on the two platforms. In March this year, we found out numbers had skyrocketed to 80 million downloads, this came alongside the launch of the Windows Phone BBM launch.

It looks like the growth of BBM is starting to slow down, but is still continuing upward. This might be a little concerning for the longevity of BBM against WhatsApp, which keeps adding 25/50 million users every month.

BBM was a favorite back when BlackBerry had mobile market share, a lot of the appeal comes from its business class messaging features, alongside an easy to use interface. It looks like a bit of nostalgia has brought fans of the service back, but how long will that nostalgia hold?

2015 looks like a hard hitting year when it comes to messaging apps, with Facebook's acquisition of WhatsApp finally through the EU Commissioner's Office, Google looking to create their own "WhatsApp-like" messaging service and Chinese app WeChat looking to expand its borders.

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