BlackBerry Messenger Shutting Down for Consumers on May 31

Emtek, the company that owns the rights to BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) in 2016, today announced that it will be closing BBM consumer service on 31 May 2019. The decision was taken after several efforts taken by Emtek failed to make the messenger service more popular among consumers.

The End

Soon after acquiring rights to BBM, Emtek rolled out several new features such as payments and cross-platform support to the messaging service in the hope of reviving its popularity. Thanks to fierce competition from rival messaging services such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, things only got worse for BBM. One of the few countries where BBM still remains relevant is Indonesia. According to a report that came out last year, BlackBerry Messenger was the most popular messaging app in the country with over 60 million active users.

Once the BBM consumer service shuts down on 31 May, users will no longer be able to view their old messages or photos in the app. So if you have any photos or other files on BBM that you wish to save, you should download them before 31 May. Apart from messages and files, BBM users will not be able to retain any purchased stickers or personalized emojis either.

However, if you are among the few loyal BBM users out there, there is some good news as well. While the BBM consumer service will be shut down next month, BlackBerry has announced that it will be making its BBM Enterprise (BBMe) enterprise-grade end-to-end encrypted messaging platform available to individuals.

Users will be able to download BBMe from the Google Play Store on the Android platform starting today. It will soon be available in the Apple App Store as well. While BBMe will be free to use for the first year, users will later have to pay $2.49 for a 6-month subscription to the messaging service.