BlackBerry: 5m people downloaded BBM for iOS, Android in first 8 hours

As a company, BlackBerry might be in dire shape, but it’s clear that people are still incredibly hungry for its proprietary messaging system BBM.

In the first eight hours after the company announced that the chat app was ready to be released on iOS and Android, it announced on Twitter that five-million people had managed to download it.

Next 5 million in line – your turn! Open up BBM and click "I got the email" to get started on #BBM right away!

— BBM (@BBM) October 22, 2013

If that tweet is to be believed meanwhile, there were at least another five-million people queuing up to get their hands on it.

Those people are in the second wave of BlackBerry’s phased roll out of BBM, with the Canadian company promising to “hold your spot in line” and send an email when once the service is ready for you to use.

While some might be surprised at the number of people who’ve evidently left BlackBerry but still want to use BBM, the signs of demand were there. Most notably, around six-million people signed up to get updates concerning the release on BBM.com

BlackBerry was supposed to roll out BBM for Android in September, but halted the rollout due to a leaked version that apparently caused havoc with its service after a million users installed the unreleased app.

The numbers downloading BBM should also get a fairly significant boost when the app rolls out for African users (although Samsung users can already get it) in a couple days’ time.