Osaka Corp (OSC) - BlackBerry Could Turn BBM Into ATM

Online, March 31, 2014 (Newswire.com) - Osaka Corp: BlackBerry, the embattled smartphone manufacturer is considering the viability of its BBM service as a means by which to send money, particularly in markets where BlackBerry remains popular including parts of Asia and Latin America.

BBM has 85 million monthly active users and daily registrations have jumped by 40% since it added support for an older version of Android - Gingerbread - that is widely used on phones in developing markets.

The news comes several months after BlackBerry decided to refocus its efforts on four core areas of its business. One of those is the BlackBerry Messaging service which is considered to be particularly secure when compared to ordinary SMS messaging.

President of the company's enterprise unit, John Sims, said that the company is meeting with partners and exploring the market as he considers the movement of money to be "an important thing".

"The high security rating of BBM is one of the reasons the US Department of Defense is keen to retain BlackBerry as a preferred supplier of devices despite efforts by other manufacturers using different systems to unseat them," said an Osaka Corp tech analyst.

Despite its renewed focus on the enterprise sector, BlackBerry intends to launch two new phones in 2014, the first results of a partnership with Taiwanese contract manufacturer, Foxconn which also builds Apple's iPhone.

"One of the devices will be an all-touch model that will retail for less than $200 without subsidy and go on sale in Indonesia while the other will retain the more traditional keyboard and trackpad and will be released before the end of the year," said the "Osaka Corp" analyst.

"The high security rating of BBM is one of the reasons the US Department of Defense is keen to retain BlackBerry as a preferred supplier of devices despite efforts by other manufacturers using different systems to unseat them," said an Osaka Corp tech analyst.