Blackberry to Launch BBM for Android and iOS

BBM, Blackberry’s signature instant messaging service, will be available for Android and IOS users later this year. With this all Android, iOS and Blackberry devices will be able to cross-communicate using BB10’s feature rich BBM services.

There are over 60 million active BBM users using blackberry devices, who will now be able to connect with their cross-platform friends from Android and iOS.

With this announcement, Blackberry has shown its confident over BB10 – its latest OS release for blackberry devices, however, at the same time company is giving away its one of most handy tools to other operating systems.

This move from Blackberry also hints that firm – once used to be the monopoly in smartphones – is now starting to think about integrating its services with other platforms, which is a good thing.

Blackberry said that app will be free for both Android and iOS users, while iOS 6 and Ice Cream Sandwich will be required to run BBM.

Blackberry said that app will feature messaging and group services initially, however, with time all BBM features will be added for Android and iOS users. BBM has lately started offering screen sharing, BBM voice, video.

BBM for Android and iOS will offer:

The immediacy of BBM chats

Multi-person chats

Voice note sharing

BlackBerry Groups, where BBM users are able to set up groups of up to 30 people and share calendar, photos, files and more

Android Tops Sales Charts in Q1 with 30 % Smartphones From Samsung Only

Gartner has released stats for smartphone and mobile phones sales for first quarter 2013, according to which Android smartphones grabbed 75 percent share from total smartphone sales, while Samsung sold 30 percent of these smartphones in first three months of current year.

Out of total 210 million smartphones sold in first quarter, 156 million devices were running on Android platform.

Smartphones sales grew by 50 percent or 63 million units during first quarter, as compared with duration last year, and reached 210 million units. This is almost half of overall mobile phones’ sales that stood at 425 million units.

Gartner said that more than half of the phones, i.e. 226 million unit were sold in Asia Pacific only.

Samsung remained the top mobile phone seller. Its share of smartphones reached 30.8 percent, up 3.2 percentage points from the first quarter of 2012. Samsung is poised to further strengthen its position with recently launched Galaxy S4.

Nokia’s mobile phones share dropped by 4.9 percent, naturally due to lesser sales of feature phone during the quarter. Nokia sold 5.1 million units of Windows phones.

Check below tables for more details:

Vendor Wise Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales in 1Q13 (Thousands of Units)

Company	1Q13 Units	1Q13 Market Share (%)	1Q12 Units	1Q12 Market Share (%)
Samsung	100,657.7	23.6	89,284.6	21.1
Nokia	63,215.2	14.8	83,162.5	19.7
Apple	38,331.8	9.0	33,120.5	7.8
LG Electronics	15,615.8	3.7	14,720.4	3.5
ZTE	14,606.6	3.4	17,379.7	4.1
Huawei Technologies	11,114.8	2.6	10,796.1	2.6
TCL Communication	8,515.9	2.0	7,396.6	1.7
Sony Mobile Communications	7,955.5	1.9	7,898.4	1.9
Lenovo	7,778.9	1.8	5,820.6	1.4
Yulong	7,478.8	1.8	3,146.6	0.7
Others	150,550.6	35.4	150,229.40	35.5
Total	425,821.6	100.0	422,955.4	100.0

OS Wise Worldwide Smartphone Sales in 1Q13 (Thousands of Units)

Operating System	1Q13 Units	1Q13 Market Share (%)	1Q12 Units	1Q12 Market Share (%)
Android	156,186.0	74.4	83,684.4	56.9
iOS	38,331.8	18.2	33,120.5	22.5
BlackBerry	6,218.6	3.0	9,939.3	6.8
Microsoft	5,989.2	2.9	2,722.5	1.9
Bada	1,370.8	0.7	3,843.7	2.6
Symbian	1,349.4	0.6	12,466.9	8.5
Others	600.3	0.3	1,242.9	0.8
Total	210,046.1	100.0	147,020.2	100.0

Vendor Wise Worldwide Smartphone Sales – 1Q13 (Thousands of Units)

Company	1Q13 Units	1Q13 Market Share (%)	1Q12 Units	1Q12 Market Share (%)
Samsung	64,740.0	30.8	40,612.8	27.6
Apple	38,331.8	18.2	33,120.5	22.5
LG Electronics	10,080.4	4.8	4,961.4	3.4
Huawei Technologies	9,334.2	4.4	5,269.6	3.6
ZTE	7,883.3	3.8	4,518.9	3.1
Others	79,676.4	37.9	58,537.0	39.8
Total	210,046.1	100.0	147,020.2	100.0