BlackBerry is considering spinning off its messaging service into a separate unit, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, quoting people familiar with the matter.
The subsidiary would be called BBM, the newspaper said.
A BlackBerry spokeswoman told Reuters the company cannot comment on rumour and speculation.
Two sources familiar with the company’s thinking, who declined to be named because they are not authorised to discuss the matter with the media, told Reuters the company has reallocated internal resources and personnel to work exclusively on fine-tuning the BlackBerry Messenger service ahead of its launch on competitors’ devices.
However, there is no immediate plan to spin off the unit, one of the sources said, adding that BBM for Apple’s iPhone and devices using Google’s Android should be available to consumers in the next few weeks.
The instant messaging service has about 60 million users who send billions of messages a day. BlackBerry has sought to add value to the service, even as the popularity of the company’s own handsets shrinks, by adding video calling over WiFi and working to make the service available to users of other devices.
