KEEMANXP Dot Com

If you’re a BlackBerry user, chances are you can’t live without BBM or BlackBerry Messenger. Well, RIM recently conducted a survey to find out Southeast Asian attitudes toward the BBM service. The three main features that are popular among Malaysian BBM users are sharing what they are listening to, knowing when a message has been delivered and read and choosing a BBM display picture.

So, are you an avid fan of BBM? What say you?

The survey report is as follows:

A recent study has revealed some of the factors behind the global and local success story of BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM), the highly popular mobile to mobile social communication platform which is exclusive to the BlackBerry community.

With more than 35 million people now actively using the service around the world and an astounding 2,000 new users being added every hour, BBM now ranks as the world’s largest mobile social network platform.

As well as being a truly global phenomenon, BBM has also become a massive hit with Malaysian BlackBerry fans.

The independent, in-depth survey commissioned by Research In Motion (RIM), the creators of BlackBerry smartphones, between November and December 2010, asked around 1,125 smartphone users in Southeast Asia about their usage and attitude towards mobile applications. The survey also asked BlackBerry users about the ways they use BBM and their attitude towards the service.

The study concluded that the three most popular BBM features among BlackBerry users in Malaysia are as follows:

• Sharing what they are listening to
• Knowing when a message has been delivered and read
• Choosing a BBM display picture

Additional aspects of BBM which were singled out are the ability to send messages with unlimited character length, creating groups with BBM contacts, and the fact that no extra fees are charged outside of data.

The study also found that BBM users are more connected with their family and friends than any other instant messaging (IM) platform users. In fact, BBM users send almost 50% more messages everyday compared to other IM platform users. With an explosive growth of 500% increase in usage globally in 2010, it was not a surprise that BBM was rated with the highest level of satisfaction by users across all markets and platforms.

Data collected through the survey is now being used to help local application developers in Malaysia better understand the needs of Malaysian BlackBerry users for the development of further applications on the BlackBerry platform.