BlackBerry Talks To 100 Carriers To Expand Global Reach

BARCELONA -(Dow Jones)- In its push to continue its high growth rates, Research In Motion is hoping to add more telecommunications operators around the globe to its distribution network, a senior official Wednesday said.

"We are already distributed by 200 carriers, and we are talking to a 100 more carriers," Charmaine Eggberry, RIM's managing director for Europe, Middle East and Africa, told Dow Jones Newswires in an interview on the sidelines of the 3GSM World Congress.

RIM, the maker of the BlackBerry handheld device, is currently selling its products in a 100 countries, she said. The Waterloo, Ontario-based company recently announced the addition of Jordan to its geographic footprint.

Despite the fact that RIM is facing increased competition from the likes of U.S.-based Motorola, Samsung Electronics of Korea and more recently Apple's upcoming iPhone, Eggberry said that RIM will continue growing.

"With our most recent products, we have gone beyond e-mail," she said, pointing to the launch of the BlackBerry 8800 on Tuesday. "We believe in convergence, and in fact, our customers have already started using it."

The BlackBerry 8800 is a full-keyboard handset that, in addition to sending and receiving e-mails and calls, plays music and video and contains global positioning system technology to power mapping and navigation services. Most of the features were also in the trim version of the BlackBerry, dubbed Pearl, which was introduced five months ago.

New applications that will further unlock corporations' networks for wireless devices - beyond e-mail - will also be a larger growth driver, Eggberry said, without elaborating.

Investors have awarded RIM with a premium valuation compared with its rivals because of its higher growth rates. In its most recent quarter, the Blackberry-maker's sales jumped to $835.1 million from $560.6 million a year earlier, as it added 875,000 new subscribers.

Company Web site: http://www.blackberry.com

-By Joon Knapen, Dow Jones Newswires; +49-30-28884127; joon.knapen@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires "

Posted to the site on 14th February 2007