BBM to come preinstalled on some Android smartphones

Earlier last month BlackBerry announced it will be bringing its highly popular BlackBerry Messenger (a.k.a. BBM) to Android and iOS, but it turns out the Canadians are aiming higher – they want BBM to be available out of box.

"There is interest from other handset makers" says BlackBerry COO Kristian Tear, but he didn’t say which ones. Apple is certainly not one of them (it has a competing service, iMessage), Android manufacturers will be easier to convince (except maybe Samsung, which has ChatOn).

While BBM has been falling out of popularity recently, it's still used by 51 million users for an average of 90 minutes a day. The monthly user count is only a little higher – 60 million – which means that most people who have BBM use it heavily.

Android and iOS users won't get the full BlackBerry Messenger experience, not at first anyway. There will be chats (including multi-user chats), Groups and voice notes. Voice and video calls, channels plus screen sharing are expected to be added later on.

By the way, the Android and iOS apps should land in their respective app stores on June 27.

Source