Blackberry has assured all BBM users that it does not plan on charging subscribers for the popular messaging service anytime soon.
The immense popularity of the service made some users fear that it will become a paid service soon.
However, the Waterloo-based telecommunications company has assured its followers. "It's definitely a free service," said Andrew Bocking, executive vice-president of BBM for BlackBerry, reports CBC. "We have other ideas on how to monetize that service."
Bocking also disclosed plans to make the service more appealing to its Android and iOS subscribers. "We continue to plan to evolve the service and keep making it more engaging and have more reasons why people will come back to use the service."
In fact, new joiners to the service will be on the same footing with other Blackberry users within months as the company plans to add video chatting and voice calling options to its messaging service. At present the yet to be added facilities are available free of cost on two BB10 powered handsets, Blackberry Z 10 and Blackberry Q10.
Blackberry had been struggling hard to resurrect its position in the market for long and looking at the immense popularity of its messaging service (based on the downlaoads and the reviews for the app), it will not be surprising if the company changes its mind later and make the messaging service chargeable. The BBM app launched for the Android and iOS users last week was downloaded by more than 10 million users within 24 hours after the app was released. "We've already had more than 10 million downloads of BBM. I want to thank our customers - old and new - our employees, and our partners for their enthusiasm and commitment. BBM is looking great on iPhone, Android and BlackBerry, and the team here is very excited about the success of this launch," said Bocking on the official blog, according to a recent post on TrustedReviews.