BBM going strong with 85mn monthly active users

BlackBerry's once-exclusive messenger app (BBM) has apparently begun the sinking company's turnaround process with its 85 million strong monthly active users.

BlackBerry recently liberated its BBM by allowing third-party platforms to use it, which immediately led to 10 million downloads in a single day.

CEO John Chen said that BlackBerry has a very solid BBM monetisation plan, adding that the app now has about 113 million registered users, indicative of a growth in new registrations, Tech Crunch reports.

He further said that growing the BBM user base is a top priority for the company and they have a number of initiatives driving this.

Chen reiterated that BBM would be coming to Windows Phone, targeted for fiscal Q2, and would be pre-loaded on Nokia devices in select markets.

Chen said that the number of Channels, BBM's message-board style group interactions, has more than doubled in the past four months, rising from 200,000 when he started in the CEO role to circa 500,000 now.

The CEO further said that the company was planning to add a pay per user model for Channels as a 'potential monetization opportunity' for BBM.

BlackBerry is also aiming to introduce an enterprise-grade version of messaging services that's called eBBM Suites, which would offer messaging services with 'regulator level enhanced security' to the enterprise cloud, the report added.

The once-popular smartphone maker lost its market share after rivals Apple, Google and Samsung took over the masses with innovative products.