Posted on July 8, 2009, at 2:58 PM .
Simon picked up the story that RIM VP Jeff McDowell confirmed App World will be hitting France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, this month, with Brazil and India next on the list.
Congratulations to RIM legal for entering the French market, which is a relatively difficult market to enter. The US Commerical Service has echoed this sentiment, and it has portrayed the French market in a way that could be deemed isolationist.
“Enforcement of complex technical standards and lengthy testing procedures sometimes appears to exceed reasonable requirement levels needed to assure proper performance and safety, for example in the areas of electronics, telecommunications equipment, and agriculture phytosanitary standards.”
It takes several months for RIM legal to sort through the legal documents and conditions for App World to enter a new market. It took RIM legal 2 months to get App World to Britain and there are many European countries with more complicated and restrictive laws surrounding content distribution. So while getting App World around the world is a top priority, it could be a couple years before we see global penetration.
[Via]
Posted on May 26, 2009, at 1:55 PM .
Screenshot of BOLT.
The BOLT mobile browser is the newest mobile browser available and there are some interesting facts that have come out of the public beta.
India has emerged as the second largest market for BOLT. Although Bitstream is a US-based company, the engineering of BOLT was completed in Noida, India as well as Bangladesh.
India’s users are enjoying social networking and video, with social networks Orkut and Peperonity being 2 of the top five sites visited by Indian users (Facebook is in the top 10). YouTube is also in the top five sites favored in India.
Additional data:
• 1 in 6 users of BOLT resides in India, the second largest market for BOLT outside North America.
• There are 295 different models of phones used in India; 96 models in North America; 173 in Western Europe.
• Whereas 2 of the top 25 phones in North America were feature phones, and just 1 of the top 25 phones in India were smartphones, in Europe is more balanced with 10 feature phones in the list of top 25 phones.
Posted on January 9, 2009, at 11:24 AM .
Press Release
Mumbai, India – Airtel and Research In Motion today announced the launch of the BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 smartphone in India. Priced at Rs.21990 the smartphone is now available at Airtel authorized channels nationally.
“The BlackBerry Pearl Flip is a powerful, compact smartphone equipped to deliver a wide range of applications,” said Mr. Sanjay Gupta, Chief Marketing Officer, Mobile Services, Airtel. “This continues to reinforce our commitment to enhance and deliver the best communication experience to our users with the latest BlackBerry smartphones from Airtel.”
The new BlackBerry Pearl Flip smartphone harnesses the power of the BlackBerry platform and packs a wide range of useful features into a sleek flip design. Its spacious keyboard allows easy typing and dialing and the flip design opens to a large, vibrant internal display and provides the satisfying finality of ending a call by closing the phone. Customers will also appreciate the smartphone’s external display for previewing calendar reminders, email, text messages and phone calls at a glance.
Continue reading ‘Bharti Airtel and RIM Launch the New BlackBerry Pearl Flip in India’
Posted on January 9, 2009, at 11:12 AM .
Press Release
BlackBerry Pearl Flip: The power of a BlackBerry smartphone in a new, sleek, stylish and fun design
Mumbai, India – Vodafone and Research In Motion today launched the BlackBerry® Pearl™ Flip 8220 smartphone in India – the first smartphone within RIM’s portfolio to come in the popular clamshell format.
The new BlackBerry Pearl Flip smartphone maintains the popular features and benefits of the BlackBerry Pearl smartphone; plus it packs numerous enhancements into its sleek flip design. The spacious SureType keyboard allows easy typing and dialing while the flip design helps protect the large, vibrant internal screen and provides the satisfying finality of ending a call by closing the phone. Customers will also appreciate the external display for previewing calendar reminders, email, text messages and phone calls at a glance.
Continue reading ‘Vodafone Introduces the BlackBerry Pearl Flip in India’
Posted on November 13, 2008, at 1:42 AM .
Anyone who wonders why RIM’s recent troubles bringing BlackBerrys to India were such a big deal need only look at these numbers to understand. According to the Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI), India’s GSM networks added a record breaking 7.7 million net customers in October, bringing India’s total GSM base to 241.4 million. These figures, however, do not include the GSM subscriber base from Reliance Communications – which although a predominantly CDMA operator has a growing GSM base as well. Adding Reliance Communications’ estimated 9.2 million GSM subscribers would bring India’s total base to over 250 million GSM customers.
250 million GSM subscribers – just think about that number for a second. That’s almost the population of the United States. How much would it improve RIM’s bottom line to grab even a small percentage of that number?
|via CN|
Posted on September 18, 2008, at 8:52 AM .
Two different Indian carriers announced new information for a wide variety of BlackBerrys today. In news that will only make the rumored AT&T Bold delay sting more, Airtel has announced the launch of the BlackBerry Bold on their network, priced at Rs. 34,990 and available by the end of September.
In addition, Reliance mobile has introduced the first prepaid BlackBerry service in India today for no less than six different devices. Reliance claims that this announcement will help expand BlackBerry interest to the 200 million prepaid users in India.
Reliance Prepaid BlackBerry Support
* The BlackBerry 8830 World Edition
* The BlackBerry Curve 8330
* The BlackBerry Curve 8300
* The BlackBerry Pearl 8100
* The BlackBerry Pearl 8130
* The BlackBerry 8703e
Read the Ultimate BlackBerry Bold Review (with full device specs)
(via RIM, Ciol)
