Research in Motion (RIM), a Canadian-based company has announced its intentions to expand the current sales of its BlackBerry smartphone in India.
Economic Times of India reports that the Canadian-based company will aiming to increase its presence in the country, with covering 160 more cities in the country this year – double the current number. The company is supposed to have over 4,000 sales outlets nationwide.
RIM has already planned to launch a number of new smartphone devices running its latest BlackBerry 10 OS, as mentioned earlier by company’s new CEO Thorsten Heins that he wants to see company among the world’s top three smartphone makers.
In November alone, company sold over 15 million smartphones in the country with smartphone shipments to the India hit a record high last year. But, surprisingly, smartphones made up for just 6% of the 160+ million units shipped.
Seeing the figures, one can easily say that India with its population of 1.2 billion is a huge potential market for smartphones. It seems that the Indian mobile market is close to saturation point with people owning more and more mobile devices.
There other companies like Samsung that has invested huge amounts in India. It has recently surpassed its rival company Nokia to move on the top of the smartphone market in the country. RIM is looking forward to take on both the companies and committed to prove its presence in the Indian market.
Due a number of different constraints, RIM had faced hard time promoting its efforts in the country. Frequent service outages in different parts of the world, including India, were another setback for the company.
In Southeast Asia, BlackBerry smartphones still have a strong hold, but as the mobile market growing and the intensifying competition may have some impact on the current status of BlackBerry in that region.
