BlackBerry launches BBM for Windows phone users

Canadian smartphone manufacturer BlackBerry has launched its BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) services for Windows Phone 8 and higher-end users. Starting Thursday, Windows Phone 8 users have been able to download BBM.

''BBM on Windows Phone brings our customers the secure, easy-to-use messaging experience they demand, and we expect that new features will roll out in the months to come,'' said Bryan Biniak, vice president and general manager, developer experience, Microsoft.

BBM, introduced in 2005, has more than 85 million monthly active users around the world.

The BBM services include BBM Chats, BBM Groups (adding upto 50 people to the conversation), Find Friends and BBM Feeds among others. BlackBerry would also continue to introduce additional features for BBM on Windows phones.

''As the popularity of BBM continues to grow, we are thrilled to have the opportunity to expand its availability to the Windows Phone community,'' said John Sims, president global enterprise services at BlackBerry. ''The BBM app for Windows Phone shows our commitment to supporting cross-platform capabilities, and we are excited to be working with Microsoft to deliver a new level of collaboration to the Windows Phone platform.''

BlackBerry posted $966 million in revenue for the first quarter of the fiscal 2015 ended May, down $10 million or 1 per cent, from $976 million in the previous quarter. The revenue breakdown for the quarter was about 39 per cent for hardware, 54 per cent for services and 7 per cent for software and other revenue.

During the first quarter, the company sold about 1.6 million BlackBerry smartphones compared to about 1.3 million BlackBerry smartphones in the previous quarter.