RIM to Launch Blackberry in China by Late May

Research In Motion (RIM) reportedly expects to launch its Blackberry wireless e-mail deivce with Hong Kong-based China Mobile by the end of 2006.

The number of Chinese mobile subscriptions reached 404 million at the end of February, according to Chinese government statisticians. Over half of Chinese users rely on China Mobile for their wireless service, a total of 254.9 million as of the end of February, according to the company. China Mobile alone has more mobile phone subscribers than the entire U.S

RIM has also announced plans of launching a Blackberry device that uses 3G mobile technology in the second half of 2006.

Meanwhile, China Unicom has launched a ‘Redberry’ wirless e-mail service which emulates the Blackberry. Once the genuine Blackberry hits the market, though, it is likely to have a large takeup, facing little competition from the Redberry.

Having competitors with seemingly similar offerings is nothing new to RIM. With some four million BlackBerry devices in use around the world, RIM competes with Palm, Hewlett-Packard, Nokia and Motorola on the device front. Meanwhile its software rivals include privately held Good Technologies, and Microsoft, among others. [3G!]

Read more: Asia Tech Weblog