Tag: China-Unicom

Everything you ever wanted to know about BlackBerry in China

Posted
by
Kyle McInnes
on December 2, 2009, at 7:53 AM
in Editorials, News, Spotlight and Top-Story
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66 Comments

BlackBerry_in_China_2

First of all, I’d like to introduce the mobile operators in China. As you may know, there are now three mobile operators in mainland China. The biggest is China Mobile, which owns TD-SCDMA found in UMTS networks in China. China Unicom is another, and it owns WCDMA and has recently launched the iPhone. The third is China telecom which owns CDMA2000.

BlackBerry is just beginning to become popular in China but there are still some major barriers. Many of my friends use a BlackBerry, but RIM has not established any retail outlets or simple means to buy their devices. Most of us get our Blackberry phones as smuggled goods or from friends abroad. China Mobile now offers BES (BlackBerry Enterprise Server) with the Blackberry 8700, but it comes at a very high price, about 398 RMB- 598 RMB/month ($60 to $85 USD). This is all going to change very soon. The latest news is that China Telecom have announced BIS support, and they are going to be shipping the BlackBerry Storm and Tour in the near future. China Mobile are also rumored to be releasing the BlackBerry Curve 8900 and Bold2 (not sure) soon. We have also heard from an official at China Unicom, who has confirmed they are in talks with RIM, so we will hopefully see some BlackBerry devices from them as well. Overall, China is going to see a big surge in devices around all of mainland China.
Continue reading about BlackBerry in China and what RIM can do to succeed

Knock-offs pose threat to BlackBerrys in China

Posted
by
Simon Sage
on October 17, 2007, at 8:43 AM
in News
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4 Comments

ChinaA recent story went over some of the challenges RIM faces in the Chinese market, primarily China Unicom’s nefarious RedBerry. The article states that SIM cards and data plans are the only things available for BlackBerry, as previously reported. Despite this, we have it on good word that the 8700 and 7290 are, in fact, sold by China Mobile, but how well they’re doing against the significantly cheaper RedBerry remains to be seen.

“Chinese businessmen are not that international yet, so they are not as familiar yet with the Blackberry and prefer local gadgets,” said Rock Yang, principal handsets analyst at Beijing-based BDA. “Price will be the deciding factor in determining how the BlackBerry expands in China,” he added.