After rolling out BBM for Android and iOS last week, BlackBerry today announced more than 20 million users are actively using the app for the two mobile platforms. Furthermore, the Canadian company also revealed that BBM now has over 80 million monthly active users across BlackBerry, Android, and iOS.
It’s worth noting that this milestone is different than BBM for Android and iOS hitting 5 million downloads in 8 hours, and then 10 million downloads in 24 hours. BlackBerry is now talking about active monthly users, meaning it is not including those who downloaded its app and didn’t use it.
Here is BlackBerry’s explanation:
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.
BlackBerry of course defines monthly active users as you’d expect: those who “send or receive any data through the BBM service within a given 30-day period.” It’s safe to assume that most people who downloaded BBM for Android or iOS used it at least once or twice.
A fraction likely downloaded it but didn’t bother adding any contacts or sending any messages, but most likely did. The real test for BBM on third-party platforms will then be to see how this 20 million figure changes over the course of the next few months: will BBM’s current monthly active users on other mobile platforms keep using the app, or will they get bored and move on?
See also – BlackBerry does ‘not approve of or condone’ the fishy BBM for Android reviews, denies any involvement and Hands-on with BlackBerry’s BBM app for iOS
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