BlackBerry’s BBM service finally landed on Android and Apple iOS on Monday and in that time BlackBerry has seen a massive uptake in downloads for the granddaddy of the free messaging service.
The Canadian smartphone company has reported that the app has been downloaded over 10 Million times in the last 24 hours, which is more than many had predicted. One of the benefits of BlackBerry’s messaging service is a certain feeling of nostalgia for people who used the last generation of BlackBerry handsets (pre-BlackBerry 10 OS) to send free messages to other BBM users.
Andrew Bocking, BBM head at BlackBerry based in Canada spoke of the app’s success:
“I’m also pleased to say that BBM rose very quickly in the Apple App Store free app rankings in the first 24 hours, taking the number one slot in more than 75 countries, including the US, Canada, the UK, Indonesia and most of the Middle East,”
The actual figures show that the first 8 hours of the BBM for Android and iOS launch saw a massive 8 Million users download the apps, with the remaining 16 hours filled up with another 2 million downloaders.
Bocking also stated: “We have also seen overwhelmingly positive reviews on Google Play and the App Store, In fact, BBM has earned 60,000 five-star reviews on Google Play from about 87,000 reviews.”
BBM is still active in the company’s latest BlackBerry 10 devices but with sales of the current handsets not doing so well BlackBerry’s last big push to make a change was with BBM, and with so many customers picking up the messenger service in the first few days, the app may have a chance of success.
However, with other free messaging services like WhatsApp and Viber already taking free messaging to a new level, can BBM make a success of itself again?