Studio Press

Research In Motion Ltd (RIM) and Maxis Communications Bhd hope to increase their Blackberry handsets sales to 7,000 this year, a 100% increase from the 3,500 units sold in 2005, with the recent launch of the new 8700G model.

Maxis chief operating officer Edward Ying said the co-operation had already arrived at a viable strategy to achieve the result.

“Previously, we were targeting the Blackberry at senior executives of our client companies, such as Coca-Cola, British American Tobacco and Genting.

Research in Motion HK Ltd public relations specialist Queenie Chow with the Blackberry 8700G.

“Now, we hope to market the new model to the lower-ranked employees of these companies as these are part of an existing market,” Ying told a media interview last week.

Besides re-selling to employees of its clients, he said Maxis, which was supplying the EDGE network to RIM's Blackberry, was also planning to grow the market by reaching out to sales people and other professionals, as well as small-medium enterprises.

RIM Asia-Pacific vice-president Norm Lo said he was confident the 8700G would be well-received.

“The Blackberry is not just a handset but a solution in itself. It allows people to basically compress the desktop into their hands, and has the capacity to let the user browse the Internet and check his e-mail,” he said.

Lo said this made the RM2,400 “investment” on the 8700G a wise move for members of the workforce who were always on the go, as it helped increase their productivity.

“It saves the owner a lot of time and they do not need to go back to the office to access the desktop,” he added.

Ying said Maxis would not be too concerned about competition as it was the only company in Malaysia to offer the EDGE technology for the Blackberry and, by year-end, Maxis hoped to have the 3G network available for the device.

He said 85% of customers subscribing to the Blackberry service on Maxis were corporate customers, with the remainder being individual consumers.

Lo added that with RIM’s Blackberry being the pioneer of the mobile Internet market, it would actually welcome some competition, because it would indirectly tell consumers that mobile Internet was the “in” thing.

“We wouldn't mind our competitors joining us in the industry and having a slice of the profit, if it means the overall volume of consumers buying from us also increases,” he said.

Both men, meanwhile, agreed that the mobile Internet device industry had ample room for growth, with Ying saying: “There are now about 15 million active mobile subscribers in Malaysia. If we target only the top-tier 1% of these with the Blackberry, we get a figure of roughly 150,000. The current market size as we know is only 3,500 units.”

Lo added that to keep its market, RIM had invested about US$40mil on research and development to continuously innovate Blackberry.

Two other models now available are the 7290, launched in December 2004, and the 7100G, launched in August last year.-By KEITH HIEW