BBM To Come Pre-installed on TECNO Smartphones

According to this news report by ThisDay, TECNO and BlackBerry have struck a deal that lets TECNO pre-install BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) on their Android smartphones. The report quotes TECNO’s Vice President:

“Based on this arrangement, customers who buy TECNO phones will find the BBM application already preloaded and this available in 20 countries. For those customers already using TECNO phones, it will be possible to download the application through the Google play store”

I see the value though: no matter how much noise we make about 3rd party apps and app stores, most smartphone users are too lazy or do not care enough to go app hunting. This is a fact outside of the techie crowd. Most users make do with whatever comes pre-installed on their phones (or, God bless them, their PCs). TECNO are on to something: having BBM pre-installed on their phones is a good move.

PS: Micromax is another mobile manufacturer that has struck a similar deal.

Mister Mobility

Founder of MobilityArena. Yomi’s journey in mobile started in 2001. Besides obsessing over mobile phones, he also started creating WAP sites (early mobile-friendly websites created with WML). He began writing about phones in 2004 and has been at it since then. He has owned over 200 devices, from Symbian, Palm, PocketPC/Windows Mobile, BlackBerry/BB10, webOS, Windows Phone, Firefox, Ubuntu Touch, to Android, iOS, and KaiOS operating systems.