The launch of BBM for iPhone and Android has been a huge success for BlackBerry: during the first week of availability, the struggling Canadian company has managed to grow its user base to 80 million monthly active users.
The first seven days brought 20 million new users to BBM, and the app was the overall top free app in 107 countries in the App Store, maintaining a strong position in Canada, the US, the UK, and Indonesia.
Clearly, the momentum of BBM for BlackBerry, Android and iPhone continues to grow and while we are excited by the download numbers we saw this week, downloads do not speak to the way people interact with each other using BBM and we will now focus on active use of BBM – the connections being made and the conversations in which our BBM community engages, the company informed in a blog post.
After the first version hit the App Store and went live, the BBM team quickly pushed out updates for both iPhone and Android users, and starting Saturday, they removed the line-up so new users can now easily download the app.
BBM arrived after a wait of several months. Now it remains to be seen whether the app’s growth curve will continue upwards or not. It all depends on new features, and the press release issued today celebrating the BBM momentum suggests that the company has a few tricks up its sleeves. We will see some new features in the coming months.
