BBM is rolling out worldwide and as many as 10 million people have already downloaded the app in the first 24 hours alone. For those with Android devices in Africa that has not been an outright possibility. One has to own a Samsung Android device, obviously a Galaxy. While that was not made clear by Blackberry (I have reached out to them for comment and will update as soon as I hear back from them), it is now coming out that indeed as we knew all along through previous commercials, there was some sort of arrangement between Samsung and Blackberry whereby Blackberry Messenger was to be exclusive to Samsung devices. Blackberry denied that some time back saying that BBM would roll-out to all users and won’t be tied to a single device manufacturer or network operator. For Samsung’s case though, the exclusivity was to last for only the period between October 22nd and October 24th (i.e 3 days) so in essence we’re a few hours from (25th October) the full steam roll-out of Blackberry Messenger to all Android devices in Africa.
Then again, Samsung smartphones account for about 52% of all smartphones sold in Africa so the majority already have the app thanks to that unstated partnership.
UPDATE
I just came across this from Blackberry ZA’s Facebook Page. Everything adds up.
