Popular Mechanics (South Africa)
BBM IS BACK:
Blackberry Messenger – if you thought it was long gone, you’re in for a surprise.
In fact, it was never gone.
BBM IS ONE of the largest mobile-messaging applications and the longest running,’ says Adam Pattison, Vice President and General Manager for the EMEA and Americas at BBM. BBM started out purely as a messaging app between Blackberry devices, but is now independent of the Blackberry business completely, boasting more than 100 million global users on Android and IOS devices.
Remember when being asked for your BBM pin was even more common than having someone ask for your number? But what happened to BBM, and why did it lose popularity?
‘As it became clear that the Blackberry device market share was on the decline, the perception was that BBM had also become less popular as a result,’ explains Pattison. ‘However, this was never really the case. As BBM moved on to Android and IOS platforms in 2013, the popularity of the service stayed very high in its core markets of Indonesia, South East Asia, the Middle East, parts of Africa and Canada.’
‘Obviously, the dramatic expansion of Whatsapp and the emergence of many other new messaging apps created increased competition, but the move into content as well as messaging has allowed BBM not only to stay popular and relevant within its key markets, but to increase its share by offering more value for its user base.’ 60 per cent of a user’s time on their mobile device is spent communicating via text. It is consistently the one thing that keeps a user returning to their screen, adds Pattison. The other 40 per cent of the time is spent playing games, on social feeds or browsing published content and video. ‘BBM remains relevant by not competing with all of these apps, but
instead utilising the key differentiator of chat and partnering with the best of these content providers, and creating a new route for them to engage with users.’
Since its release in August 2005, BBM has evolved from a pure messaging application for communication of text and video to a social ecosystem. In its new form, it unifies a variety of platforms including chat, social, commerce and services that include games, video, premium published content and utility services such as Uber, travel booking services and payment solutions.
Owned by Creative Media Works, a division of PT Elang Mahkota Teknologi Tbk (Emtek), one of Indonesia’s largest media, content and technology businesses, the app continues to grow and extend its reach. It’s becoming a solid example
of the power of utility apps within the mobile environment.
In 2016, Emtek announced a longterm strategic alliance with Blackberry Limited to accelerate BBM’S research and development by offering new and exciting features, services and content to the global consumer market.
BBM has a long history within the Indonesian market and has kept its significant legacy user base there, and many of the new features and content partnerships were actually developed and implemented very quickly within that market. This then further added to the popularity of the service in that market and accelerated growth to new users. At the recent Asian Games, for example, hosted in Jakarta, Emtek had the content rights to the games which, through BBM, gave users the opportunity to discuss and share the streaming videos in the chat environment. ‘[It was] a hugely popular development and unique within the messaging space,’ says Pattison.
With the prevalence of low-end smartphones and lower access to connectivity, on the other hand, the African market presents opportunities for BBM to pack more services into the one app for the user. ‘Why have a takeaway-food app or a taxi-booking app, which occupies additional space on your phone when you can access exactly the same services via your chat application?’ asks Pattison. ‘Additionally, we are always looking to work with local services to ensure local solutions, for example the “bankless” markets. We are currently working with local providers to offer a solution for payments when a user does not have a bank account – this is a huge opportunity within our key markets of South Africa and Nigeria.’
So why should you use BBM rather than other messenger apps, you ask?
‘BBM Messenger’s key objective is to create utility for our users,’ explains Pattison. Essentially, BBM is building an ecosystem of relevant and localised content and services that are all housed within the Discover Tab. As part of this strategy, BBM partners with a host of content providers and other platforms to increase the offering as one of its key differentiating factors.
With millions of monthly active users in South Africa, and the vast majority of these users on Android, BBM also offers unique product features that address the needs of the modern-day user. These include the ability to retract messages, create private chats, send timed messages, unparalleled privacy through two-factor authentication, video- and voice calling, and sharing your location in real time.
In the next few years, messaging in general will continue to grow and BBM aims to continue pursuing the market position as a leading messaging app that also delivers on its vision of bringing content as well as utility to the digital chat environment. ‘The digital economy changes significantly and rapidly,’ says Pattison. ‘BBM will always look to embrace these changes and incorporate new services and content when appropriate, with the goal of adding value to our users’ experience.’