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New Delhi, Dec. 11: The makers of BlackBerry, who are “very bullish” on the India growth story, plan to tie up with a domestic CDMA carrier to provide a leg up to sales in the country.
Reliance Infocomm and Tata Teleservices are the two major CDMA service providers in the country.
Analysts feel Research In Motion (RIM), the manufacturer of Blackberry devices, will zero in on Reliance.
A deal with Reliance will give RIM access to the company’s large mobile subscriber base and also make the device available on a CDMA network.
Worldwide, RIM has partnerships with 150 carriers in more than 60 countries where BlackBerry services are available on more than one network. In the Asia-Pacific region, it has partnered with 21 carriers in 11 countries.
RIM, which already has a tie-up with Bharti Airtel to sell BlackBerry devices and services, has also signed a deal with Hutch to offer these services. Both Airtel and Hutch are leading GSM players.
“The Indian GDP is growing by leaps and bounds and the country is emerging as an important market for RIM,” said Gregory Wade, director, Asia-Pacific, Research In Motion. He, however, refused to comment on a deal with Reliance.
“With a year-on-year growth of more than 80 per cent, cellular subscriber growth seems to be in full steam here,” said Wade. “We plan to court the young, tech savvy entrepreneur, who wants a wireless device that has both office-on-the-move and multimedia rolled into one.”
According to sources, India has around 35,000-40,000 users of BlackBerry. Most of them are Airtel subscribers but, in a year, the number can go up to 5 lakh or more, analysts said.
But the Waterloo, Ontario-based company would market its product only through its carrier partners because of their “expertise and knowledge of domestic market”.
BlackBerry enables mobile customers to access a premium range of applications, including e-mail, attachments, spreadsheets and organisers, with a single device.
BlackBerry, which was earlier synonymous with corporate executives, has now expanded to the mainstream consumer segment with its Pearl model. The smartphone supports MP3 player, multimedia, video and digital camera, besides e-mails.
“We’re seeing sophisticated devices that were once only tools for executives going mainstream with consumer features,” said N.K. Goyal, president, Indian Manufacturing Foundation, and chairman, emeritus, TEMA.