BBM now available for Windows Phone users

NEW DELHI: BlackBerry will make its popular messaging app BBM available to users of Windows phones.

Once exclusive to BlackBerry devices, the company last year made BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) available on rival platforms of Google's Android and Apple's iOS.

Starting today, Windows Phone 8 users can download BBM and gain access to features like BBM Chats, BBM Groups and BBM Feeds, BlackBerry said in a statement.

"As the popularity of BBM continues to grow, we are thrilled to have the opportunity to expand its availability to the Windows Phone community," BlackBerry President Global Enterprise Services John Sims said.

The BBM app for Windows Phone builds on collaboration, privacy and security features.

"We are intent on bringing the most popular application experiences to Windows Phone, and with BBM, we are pleased to bring many of its top features to the Windows Phone platform," Microsoft Vice President and General Manager (Developer Experience) Bryan Biniak said.

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, he added.

Introduced in 2005, BBM now has more than 85 million monthly active users around the world. It competes with other popular messaging services like WhatsApp, Line and WeChat and has around 113 million global registered users as of March 2014.