Blackberry looks to Indonesia for rescue through partnership with media group

Credit: ibnlive.in.com

BlackBerry, the troubled Canadian phone maker whose stock has been plummeting for several years, is teaming up with Indonesian media conglomerate Emtek to try to revive its brand.

It apparently all hinges on BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), BlackBerry’s standalone chat app.

In a joint release, the companies say the strategic alliance grants the Emtek Group a license to develop new BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) applications and services for Android, iOS and Windows Phones.

“This landmark partnership accelerates BlackBerry’s vision to advance BBM for the consumer market,” the statement says.

“Emtek’s digital content arm KMK Online has a wide breadth of media assets that will be combined with more than 20 of Emtek’s businesses and investments to bring significant value and services to BBM,” it goes on.

Emtek also plans to open an office in the Toronto area “to work closely with BlackBerry.”

BlackBerry phones were massively popular in Indonesia before the more feature-rich Android-based and iOS smartphones quickly replaced them.

However, BBM continued to be a major chat platform for Indonesians even after they migrated to newer phone models.

BBM has over 55 million monthly active users in Indonesia, WSJ reported in January. It also ranks as Indonesia’s top free app according to App Annie data.