BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) will be preloaded onto LG’s G Pro Lite smartphone, as BlackBerry continues its efforts to broaden usage of its messaging app.

Kevin Shin, LG’s VP of marketing for Asia, the Middle East and CIS countries, said the device offers “an optimised BBM experience with its large, high quality display and embedded Stylus Pen”.

Giving BBM a presence on handsets ‘out-of-the-box’ is the latest move by BlackBerry to make the once proprietary messaging service as ubiquitous as possible.

The struggling handset vendor released BBM for iOS and Android at the end of October. It was downloaded 20 million times during its first week of availability for the platforms.

At the end of November, BlackBerry struck deals with 12 handset vendors for the app to be pre-installed on Android devices sold across Africa, India, Indonesia, Latin America and the Middle East.

With the service remaining free, Andrew Bocking, executive VP of BBM, previously said BlackBerry would monetise BBM through advertising and forthcoming features such as social networking service BBM Channels.

BBM for Android and iPhone will continue to evolve in the coming months, according to BlackBerry, with support for BBM Channels, as well as voice and video calling.