Blackberry had entered into an agreement with Samsung to have Blackberry Messenger available exclusive to owners of Samsung devices all over Africa through the Samsung Apps store as we had previously reported. We did make a follow up and this is the response we got from Blackberry:
Samsung Africa has been a very proactive partner and has invested significantly in promoting BBM to its customers in Africa. As part of our partnership we have agreed to a three-day time-to-market advantage for BBM to Samsung Africa customers through the Samsung Apps store.
iPhone and other Android users in Africa will be able to download the app from 20h00 on 24 October 2013.
Of course it is way past the said end of exclusivity period so I set out to see if BBM is indeed available for all. Yes it is. You can now get the BBM app from the Play Store anytime. If, like many of us, you had installed your app from the Samsung Apps store, just go to the Play Store app on your device, search for BBM in the search bar and you’ll see the familiar BBM app icon. Click to install it so that you get future updates directly from the Play Store. There is already an update to fix several bugs including random app crashes and to add support for more devices (though Blackberry does not say which ones). I had previously been checking Samsung Apps to see if the update would come but with little success. It seems it will take time.
