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Amidst, uneasiness among Blackberry
users in India whether or not they will be able to use their much loved device further; a common question that’s being asked by many is how many Blackberry phones are going to be affected; if in case Indian Government chooses to Blackberry devices in India too, just like their counterparts in Saudi Arabia.India has about 3, 00,000 or 3 lakh Blackberry users at present (according to Government sources).
Media and analysts are pegging the above number at much higher, making the issue a bit speculative. But there’s reason to this speculation.
RIM does not give country specific user numbers. So the number of Blackberry users in any country, are those provided by the operators who sell Blackberry devices officially. As many people are using unlocked Blackberry devices too, which don’t require them to choose those operators who officially sell the device; hence there count at best remains speculative not only in India; but in any country.
On 1 May 2008, the number of Blackberry users in India, was about 1, 14,000 (Government source). Although media reports pegged the number at 4, 00,000 or 4 lakh; while some analysts believed the user count is anywhere around half a million or 5 lakhs. At that time, India had 0.8 percent of global RIM subscribers (14 million, including unlocked devices), on the basis of Government figures.
Currently RIM has up to 100 millions BlackBerry users globally. India has 0.3 percent of global RIM subscribers. Although much lower than the 2008 share percentage, but that can attributed to more choices becoming available to high end smart phone users in the country in the last 2 years. Although RIM has added more than twice number of subscribers in last two years. --------
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