BlackBerry BBM Gets More Love from Users than WhatsApp, Snapchat

BBM maintains more users than other Android social apps

  Chart showing BBM users' loyalty

BlackBerry isn't doing so well in terms of smartphone sales, but when we look at the company’s software products, we see a different picture altogether.

The Canadian tech company offers its BBM messaging service not only on its own operating system but also on other mobile platforms, including Android, iOS, and Windows Phone.

According to Quettra, a website that tracks app usage on 75 million Android phones around the world, BBM was the second most popular social app among 22 Android messaging and social services tracked by the company for user retention.

The data also suggests that once users jump on board with BBM, they continue to use it. 93% of the folks who installed the application kept using it even after 30 days.

Study shows that once you go with BBM, you stay with BBM

Compared to the average 43% retention rate after 30 days achieved by other apps involved in the study, BBM fared out well above the norm.

89% of BBM users continued to remain loyal to the application even after 60 days of use. After 90 days, the percentage slightly dropped to 82%.

The only messaging platform that outperformed BBM was Facebook. Quettra numbers revealed that out of the 52 million users, a whopping 98% were still using the application after 90 days.

By comparison, only 31% of the 19.4 million Twitter users involved in the study were still using the app after 90 days of usage. Tumblr was found to have attracted 1.4 million users on board, but only 14% of them were still using the platform after 90 days.

Even if Quettra tracks app usage on 75 million Android phones worldwide, a number which must seem huge, we should bear in mind that these numbers represent only 6% of the total amount of global users.

The 22 messaging apps involved in the study included extremely popular and widespread platforms such as Facebook, BBM, Instagram, WhatsApp, WeChat, Snapchat, Tumblr, and Twitter.

BlackBerry has recently posted some figures concerning its BBM app, saying that the platform hit 100 million Android installations via Google Play after just 18 months since it made its way into the app store.

The Canadian company released BBM 2.7 in mid-March, which arrived bundling a host of goodies, like stickers and other such things.