BlackBerry Messenger For IPhone And Android Released – Five Million Downloads In Eight Hours

BlackBerry finally released the app a lot of people are waiting for - BlackBerry Messenger for iPhone and for Android.

After much delay the company finally released one of the most popular messaging apps for iOS and for Android. In May, BlackBerry first announced that the BBM will go across multiple platforms for everybody to enjoy and use the well-liked phone application.

"It's time to bring BBM to a greater audience," announced by the company's CEO, Thorsten Heins during the announcement of the expansion. "BlackBerry's killer app won't be an exclusive anymore" "Why are we doing this now? It's a statement of confidence," he added. "[It's] so strong that we are confident that BBM can become an independent messaging solution."

The Twitter account of BBM announced that there are already five million users who downloaded the said messaging app. This marked that after just eight hours from the release, millions and millions of user were able to download have already signed up.

Next 5 million in line - your turn! Open up BBM and click "I got the email" to get started on #BBM right away!

— BBM (@BBM) October 22, 2013

Given the change in platform, new users from Apple and Android will have to sign up first before fully using the application. After downloading the program, users will be asked to input their e-mails which will lead consumers to be standing on a virtual queue before getting access to the newly released product.

The recently expanded messaging software faces tough competition in other platforms as they take on the old multi platform apps namely WhatsApp and WeChat. WhatsApp alone reportedly has 27 billion messages sent everyday with over 300 million people actively uses the app.

The BlackBerry Messenger is available for free download in the App Store for iOS users, Google Play for Android users and select Samsung App Stores.