Samsung today confirmed that BBM™, the mobile social network, is now available to Samsung smartphone users, in Sub-Saharan Africa, days ahead of the official rollout to other branded Android™ devices. This limited time offer is available to Samsung customers until 20h00 on 24 October 2013.

“The anticipation is high. We are delighted that we are able to offer our loyal customers an advantage to download BBM. We are confident users will enjoy the Samsung experience to which they have become accustomed to,” said George Ferreira, VP and COO of Samsung Electronics Africa.

BBM will form part of Samsung’s Messaging Hub as a complementary addition to the current slate of messaging services that Samsung customers already enjoy, including Whatsapp, WeChat and Samsung’s propriety messaging service ChatON, which now has a global subscriber base of over 100 million users.

“We are continuously enhancing our offering to ensure our users benefit from high quality innovations and partnerships to live a connected lifestyle of communicating and sharing with friends, family and colleagues every day,” continues Ferreira.

BBM offers Samsung GALAXY smartphone users an extensive range of features, including BBM chat (one to one or multi-person chat), BBM Groups that let customers invite up to 30 friends to chat together, as well as the ability to share photos and voice notes.

"We are excited to work with Samsung to launch BBM to their customers in sub-Saharan Africa,” said Andrew Bocking, Executive Vice President for BBM at BlackBerry. “Samsung customers will discover what makes BBM so popular – they’ll enjoy a fast, reliable and engaging mobile messaging experience.”

BBM is now available for Samsung GALAXY Android smartphones for free from the Samsung App Store. Due to the high demand and volume, certain measures have been put in place to ensure a smooth roll-out across the Sub-Saharan African continent:

Installation guidelines: • Visit BBM.com to be connected to the BBM page in the Samsung App Store; • Download the BBM app from the Samsung App Store; • Once the app has been installed, open it and enter an active email address . This will ensure that the user is placed in a queuing system;

• Notification will be sent to users via that email once they have reached the front of the line, and they will then be able to launch the application and officially sign-in and start using BBM.

The BBM app is compatible with GALAXY and other Samsung smartphone devices that run Android 4.0 (Ice-Cream Sandwich) and above. Data charges may apply, as determined by local operators and service providers.