BBM for Android and iPhone brings in over 20 million users in first week

Canadian handset maker BlackBerry Tuesday said its instant messaging service BBM got over 20 million new active users in the first week of launch of the chat application for Android-based handsets and iPhone.

BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) now has more than 80 million active users across BlackBerry, Android and iPhone devices globally, the company said in a statement.

"After the amazing launch of BBM on Android and iPhone devices, with more than 10 million downloads in the first 24 hours, BBM has now ended its first week with more than 80 million monthly active users, including over 20 million new users on Android and iPhone devices," it said.

(Also see: BBM for Android and iOS downloaded 10 million times within 24 hours)

BlackBerry said in coming months, it will begin offering video calling, voice calling on BBM. Besides it will start BBM Channels - a new community building service to connect BBM users even more broadly - to Android and iPhone users.

(Also see: BlackBerry Messenger for iOS review)

In September, BlackBerry had paused the global rollout of BBM on rival phones, blaming the delay on issues caused by an unreleased old version of BBM.

The company said during its first week, BBM was the top free overall application in 35 countries in Google Play and in 107 countries in the App StoreSM.

"It is great to see so many people downloading BBM, but the true measurement for us is engagement - the connections being made and the conversations in which our BBM community engages," BlackBerry's BBM Executive Vice President Andrew Bocking said.

He added the going forward, the company will focus on active users of BBM and will no longer focus on simple download numbers.