Back in January, we had heard that BBM could soon be making its way onto older Android devices still running Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Towards the end of the month, we heard that its release would be soon and sure enough soon is correct as BlackBerry has officially released a new build of BBM that would target Android users still running on Android 2.3 Gingerbread, so if you’re still holding onto a device that cannot be updated beyond Android 2.3.7 Gingerbread but would love to get your hands on the BBM app, you will be able to do so by heading on over to the Google Play Store for the free download.
As it stands, based on the latest Android distribution figures, Android Gingerbread devices account for about 20% of the Android market at the moment. This means that at least one fifth of Android users out there are still using older builds of Android that they have either chosen not to update, or are unable to update as their handsets aren’t powerful enough. Granted those figures will probably go down over time, but that also means that BlackBerry has one fifth of the Android market that they have not tapped into. With BlackBerry not doing so hot at the moment, we guess the next best thing would be to spread their services around, even if their hardware isn’t necessarily selling as well.