BBM will now come pre-installed on LG smartphones

BlackBerry has a big announcement. The Canadian company has struck a deal with LG Electronics to make sure BBM comes pre-installed on LG phones. The LG Pro Lite is all set to be the first phone to come with BBM out of the box.

In an announcement, BlackBerry said that a bundling agreement with LG, regarding standard and virtual preloading of the app, was secured. The company has currently only named the LG G Pro Lite as the device which will see BBM come preloaded. No other devices have been named at this point of time.

To come pre-installed with LG G Pro Lite

This comes as a pretty important move for BlackBerry since the company is going through some tough times as far as devices are concerned. After a botched release of BBM a couple of months ago, BlackBerry is still struggling to stay relevant. Initially, BBM saw about 10 million downloads a day, thanks to pre-registrations and the hype created around it. However, the numbers have fast dwindled.

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With pre-loaded versions of BBM, the effort to remain relevant will get a shot in the arm for BlackBerry. Hopefully, the company is still looking at other OEMs to strike a deal with as far as pre-installing BBM goes.

“BBM is widely used throughout the Middle East, Africa and Indonesia where smartphone users tend to engage heavily in social networking,” said Kevin Shin, Vice President of Marketing for Asia, the Middle East and CIS countries of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. “The LG G Pro Lite offers an optimized BBM experience with its large, high quality display and embedded Stylus Pen.”

Even if you don’t own a G Pro Lite, you can download BBM for free on your iOS and Android devices by heading onto their respective app stores. And no, you don’t have to queue to get the app anymore.