BlackBerry turned to LG Electronics in its efforts to broaden the usage of its BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) messaging app through deals with other handset makers.

With BlackBerry’s own device shipments declining steeply in recent years, the company is looking to other handset vendors to make its once proprietary messaging service as ubiquitous as possible.

While it previously 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, these were minor players compared to LG.

Indeed, the LG deal — which will see BBM preloaded onto the G Pro Lite smartphone — is the first time BlackBerry has reached an agreement for BBM to be installed on devices made by a top five smartphone player.

According to IDC figures, the South Korean company shipped 12 million units on the third quarter, putting it in fifth place with a 4.6 per cent market share.

LG wasn’t far behind third- and fourth-placed Huawei (12.5 million) and ZTE (12.3 million), while runaway leader Samsung recorded 81.2 shipments. Apple was in second place with 33.8 million smartphone shipments.

In contrast, BlackBerry stated in September that 5.9 million BlackBerry smartphones were sold through to end customers in the quarter ending on 31 August, compared to 9.5 million a year earlier. Most of these devices (4.2 million) were powered by the ageing BlackBerry 7 platform as sales of the next-generation BlackBerry 10 devices disappointed.

BlackBerry’s first foray into allowing BBM to be installed on non-BlackBerry devices came at the end of October when it released the app for iOS and Android. It was downloaded 20 million times during its first week of availability for the platforms.

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

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